When sunshine gets you down: The role of transparency on public sentiment toward the amazon <scp>HQ2</scp> competition

Abstract In 2019, more than 230 local governments sought to attract the second headquarters of Amazon (HQ2). The Amazon HQ2 contest presents a unique, high‐profile case of state and local government competition for a project. It took place in a defined timeframe with varying bids and levels of government transparency and offers a rare window to explore how the information environment shapes expressions of sentiment by distinct actors in the political market framework (e.g., politicians, pro‐development actors, media, and the public). By analyzing nearly 40,000 Tweets across the United States and classifying actors' roles in the policy‐making process, we are able to discern how the transparency of communities' HQ2 bids differentially shaped public sentiment around this large‐scale economic development deal. “Sunshine,” we find, led to gloomy perspectives on the bids, though this negativity was moderated by actors' positions in the policy‐making process. Our results suggest that the non‐transparency of incentive deals is a strategy used to minimize criticism of politicians' economic development policies.