Institutional Design andInformation Revelation.

A hallmark of democratic systems of governance is the requirement that bureaucrats reveal private policy-relevant information they hold when they make public decisions. Equally important are procedures that require bureaucrats to reveal information they collect about the private sector that has important implications for public health and safety. This paper examines the determinants of the discretionary choice in political systems to impose information-revelation requirements on agencies to provide that information to the public. I argue that in making this choice systems balance democratic preferences for disclosure, the institutional design of revelation procedures, and political responsiveness to core constituencies. I test hypotheses about this balancing act in the case of state-level compliance with federal requirements to expand the public’s right-to-know in environmental policy. I estimate a bivariate probit model of the choice to adopt right-to-know, and the choice to impose significant fees to support that institutional design. I find that constituency characteristics drive institutional design and fiscal support for that design, but that fiscal support is also supported by broad environmental characteristics. Together, disclosure, procedure, and constituency balance and support one another in the institutional design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]