http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/5976/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12272/ 2007-04-01T00:00:00Z When hiring an adviser (he), a policy maker (she) has incomplete information about his preferences. Some advisers are good (their preferences are closely aligned to the policy maker’s), and some advisers are bad. Recently, some scholars have argued that the policy maker’s power to replace her adviser induces him to act more in line with her interests, so the adviser’s desire to influence future policy reduces his incentive to manipulate information. We show that the policy maker’s power to replace her adviser may harm her because this power may have an adverse effect on the behavior of good advisers. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7190/ 2005-12-22T00:00:00Z Due to a lack of time and expertise, policy makers often rely on others, such as bureaucrats, experts, or advisers, when policy decisions have to be made. A nontrivial problem is that those who possess information have a vested interest in the policy outcome; this gives them an incentive to manipulate or conceal information. In this book, we examine a penalty for lying and the power to replace an advisor as a means of restraining information providers from information manipulation. We argue that these two institutional arrangements may not always help a policy maker to attain a better decision (Chapters 2 and 3). Inasmuch as consequences of policies are complicated and difficult to foresee, small groups like committees often assist policy makers to collect information, deliberate over policies, and devise policy recommendations. As information is not for free, committee members must be motivated to collect it. We shed some light on how deliberation affects committee members’ incentives to gather the costly information, and thus the quality of collective decision-making (Chapter 4). Outside the political arena, agency problems between politicians and voters also exist. In Chapter 5, we examine how elections play their role of disciplining and selecting politicians and how policy choices are made when politicians differ in their motivations in running for political office. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6580/ 2005-05-23T00:00:00Z We develop a simple two period model to study the importance of motivational differences among politicians in describing the role of elections and explaining policy choices. In our model, politicians differ in their motives of running public office. Good politicians care about policies while bad politicians care about rent extraction. Voters want to control politician misbehavior and to select good politicians. We show that reelection concerns may compel a good politician not to implement a socially desirable policy if he sufficiently cares about the future. Second, reelection concerns may induce a bad politician not to undertake a socially undesirable policy. The reason for this is fear of being ruled by another bad politician if unseated. This finding exhibits the disciplining function of elections. A striking result in our paper is that bad politicians may act more in tune with the public interest relative to the good politicians. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6652/ 2004-11-17T00:00:00Z When hiring an adviser (he), a policy maker (she) often faces the problem that she has incomplete information about his preferences. Some advisers are good, in the sense that their preferences are closely aligned to the policy maker's preferences, and some advisers are bad. Recently, some scholars have argued that the policy maker's power to replace her adviser induces the adviser to act more in line with the policy maker's interests. The idea is that the adviser's desire to put a stamp on future policy reduces his incentive to manipulate information. This paper shows that the policy maker's power to replace her adviser may harm her. The reason is that this power may have an adverse effect on the behavior of good advisers. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6829/ 2002-12-03T00:00:00Z We study a model of collective decision making with endogenous information collection. Agents collect information about the consequences of a project, communicate, and then vote on the project. We examine under what conditions communication may increase the probability that good decisions are made. Our most surprising result is that when there are no direct cost of communication and communication can only help to identify the truth, more communication may reduce the probability that a correct decision is made. The reason for this result is that communication may aggravate the free-rider problem associated with collecting information.