Why do bureaucratic principals appoint agents who hold different policy views from themselves? We posit an explanation based on the interplay between two types of agency costs: shirking on information production and policy bias. Principals employ biased agents because they shirk less. This...

This paper analyzes political agency with endogenous information collection and revelation by third-party auditors. While increasing incentives for auditors to provide information straightforwardly improves political control, a small amount of pro-incumbent bias can also be useful for...