This paper explores the implications of costly information acquisition inthe strategic communication models that follow Crawford and Sobel (1982). Weshow that equilibrium decisions based on a biased expert's advice may bemore precise than in the case when information is directly acquired by thedecision maker, even if the expert is not more efficient than the decisionmaker at acquiring information. Consequently, we find that communication byan expert to the decision maker may often outperform delegation of thedecision making authority to an expert, as well as centralization by thedecision maker of both information acquisition and decision makingauthority. This result bears important implications for organization design,and especially for the study of the optimal authority allocation in thepresence of incomplete information. In particular, it provides an endogenousjustification for the emergence of signalling as a preferred organizational paradigm.