An agent may manipulate information when transmitting it to the principal. A direct response to this problem is to verify the information. The paper explores a situation where the principal engages in information verification herself or alternatively delegates it to the agent. The paper finds...

type="main" <p>We examine the power of incentives in bureaucracies by studying contracts offered by a bureaucrat to her agent. The bureaucrat operates under a fixed budget, optimally chosen by a funding authority, and she can engage in policy drift, which we define as inversely related to her...</p>

This article studies director additions and removals for S&P 500 firms during the period 2000 to 2003. It finds that firms with smaller board size than estimated efficient levels add more and remove fewer directors than firms with larger board size. It also finds that firms with lower board...