We propose a theory to explain why, and under what circumstances, a politician delegates policy tasks to a technocrat in an independent institution, and analyze under what conditions delegation is optimal for society. Our theory builds on Holmström's hidden effort principal-agent model. The...

This paper proposes a theory to explain why a politician delegates policy tasks to a technocrat in an independent institution. It formalizes the rationales for delegation highlighted by Hamilton (1788) and by Blinder (1998). Delegation trades-off the cost of having a possibly incompetent...

This paper proposes a theory to explain why a politician delegates policy tasks to a technocrat in an independent institution. It formalizes the rationales for delegation highlighted by Hamilton (1788) and by Blinder (1998). Delegation trades-off the cost of having a possibly incompetent...