Delegating Budgets when Agents Care About Autonomy

We consider resource allocation within an organisation when agents have a preference for autonomy and show how delegation bears on moral hazard and adverse selection. Agents may care about autonomy for reasons of job-satisfaction, status or greater reputation of perform-ance under autonomy. Separating allocations (overall budget and degree of delegation) are characterised depending on the preference for autonomy. As the latter is increasing, the de-gree of delegation assigned to productive and unproductive agents becomes more similar and may even be reversed when financial transfers are used. If agents’ preference for monetary rewards is sufficiently weak, the principal will not employ financial transfers and pooling arises if the preference for autonomy is strong.