How does the informational role of interest groups interact with institutions in the political control of the bureaucracy? In 1992, Banks and Weingast argued that bureaucrats hold an informational advantage vis-a-vis political principals concerning variables with direct policy relevance, and...

This essay examines the roles of competition, comparison, imitation, and punishment in the design of bureaucratic performance. Through a series of simulations, this essay examines how these elements - alone and in combination - drive both the performance and technology search paths of adaptive...

In contrast to principal-agency theory, the possibility of the political control of the bureaucracy depends on bureaucratic structure. In this paper, I argue that the functional decentralization of responsibility and authority for policy formulation and implementation involves a net loss of...