Thesis: Access to information is essential for several reasons. First, it is a way to create knowledge. Economists consider that information has economic value because it allows individuals to make choice that yield higher expected payoffs or expected utility than they would obtain from choices made in the absence of information. Access to information is also essential to the health of democracy. It first ensures that citizens make responsible, informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance. It also serves a “checking function”: having access to information allows citizens to check and to pass judgement on the conduct of their elected representatives. While information is easy to create and spread, it is in the meantime easy to manipulate. It is thus crucial that individuals have the skills to evaluate information and its sources critically before incorporating selected information into their knowledge base ad value system. This dissertation deals precisely with these issues, by exploring the role that information has along three axes. It first assesses the effect of an intervention aimed at informing parents about parenting practices on early child development outcomes (Chapter 1). It then investigates the impact of providing fact-checks of statements by candidates on voters’ electoral preferences and perceptions (Chapter 2). It finally explores the link between political ideology and the reliability of homicide data in countries with local conflicts (Chapter 3).