Information Sharing in Small Group Deliberation∗

Deliberation is supposed to lead to better, more legitimate public policy by increasing public knowledge. Theorists pin these claims on the way deliberation promotes information sharing, exposing citizens to new facts and perspectives. But will people share information in deliberation? In this paper I combine game-theoretic and psychological theories about information sharing to create a full theoretical account of when information will and will not be shared in deliberation. I test these theories using an experimental design that combines the methodologies of social psychology and experimental economics. Initial results suggest that information sharing in deliberation is rarely perfect, and i