A field experiment on bureaucratic discretionary bias under FOI laws

The gap between the approval of RTI laws and their implementation leaves room for discretionary bias and discrimination from government officials. This paper explores possible discretionary bias and ultimately discriminatory behavior exhibited by Uruguayan government agencies while answering RTI requests. We explore whether public officials are more likely to respond to requests from citizens that are informed about their right under the RTI law vs regular citizens, as well as from influential citizens (journalists and firm owners). We also assess whether public servants’ responses to RTI requests are gender-biased. We conducted a randomized field experiment to test for unequal treatment given to citizens’ requests by Uruguayan government officials, considering different citizen categories. We find that only those citizens who know the RTI law and invoke its existence have a greater likelihood of obtaining an answer from bureaucrats. This result is driven mostly by men's requests declaring they know the law when making their request, while invoking the law doesn't make a difference in responses to women. These findings show that public campaigns to promote citizens’ awareness of RTI laws and their use, not only would increase requests, but also governments’ responsiveness regarding RTI requests.