Good lies

Decision makers often face uncertainty about the ability and the integrity of their advisors. If an expert is sufficiently concerned about establishing a reputation for being skilled and unbiased, she may truthfully report her private information about the decision-relevant state. However, while in a truthtelling equilibrium the decision maker learns only about the ability of the expert, in an equilibrium with some misreporting she also learns about the expert's bias. Although truthtelling allows for better current decisions, it may lead to worse sorting outcomes. This occurs if misreporting is principally caused by biased experts driven by their conflict of interest rather than by unbiased experts attempting to signal their type. Whenever lying has these features, it increases the decision maker's expected utility with respect to truthtelling if she is sufficiently concerned about future choices. In these cases, it is optimal to adopt policies aimed at reducing advisors' career concerns and we suggest real world examples in which these could be implemented.