Sequential search with flexible information

Economic agents often seek to acquire information before taking an important action, but in many domains, gathering this information requires approval from a regulator. This paper develops a model in which an agent designs an experiment to inform his decision, but can only implement it if a regulator authorizes it ex ante. We characterize the agent's optimal experiment under this approval constraint and show that, whenever the regulator rejects full revelation, the agent strategically reduces informativeness in the states where their disagreement is least sensitive. We then extend the model to settings with multiple regulators, comparing sequential and collective approval mechanisms. The analysis yields predictions for how institutional structure shapes access to information, with applications to clinical trials, data privacy, and ethics boards.