A POPULAR remedy for a conflict of interest is disclosure — informing the buyer (or the patient, etc.) of the potential bias of the seller (or the doctor, etc.). Disclosure is supposed to act as a warning, alerting consumers to their adviser’s stake in the matter so they can process the advice accordingly.
But as several recent studies I conducted show, there is an underappreciated problem with disclosure: It often has the opposite of its intended effect, not only increasing bias in advisers but also making advisees more likely to follow biased advice.
You can read my full Op-Ed article in The New York Times.
