Adaptive contracting occurs when a principal experiments with the delegation of authority through leaving contracts incomplete. We highlight two potential benefits of adaptive contracting: First, the delegation of authority can be advantageous even if the agent acts opportunistically, since...

We make a positive analysis of the impact of market structure and political preferences on a (local) government's decision to outsource public service using the framework of Hart, Shleifer and Vishny (1997). We argue that although outsourcing is more attractive when the privte market is...

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Delegation is a key feature of political decision making: Mayors or prime ministers delegate to subordinates, voters delegate to elected representatives. We analyze the effect of political delegation on public service provision and the choice between private or public providers when contracts...

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