Abstract

He who pays the piper calls the tune, but he can only succesfully call for a tune that he will recognize upon hearing. Previous models, of two candidates impressing a voter and of firm managers impressing stock speculators, found experts ignoring costly superior information in favor of client preconceptions. Similar result hold when we greatly generalize the agents, choices, information structures, and preferences. When experts must pay to acquire information, have no intrinsic interest in client topics, and can coordinate to acquire the same information, no expert ever pays to know more than any client will know when rewarding those experts