Corruption and Power in Democracies

According to Acton: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We study the implications of Acton’s dictum in models where citizens vote (for three parties) and governments then form in a series of elections. In each election, parties have fixed tastes for graft, which affect negotiations to form a government if parliament hangs; but incumbency changes tastes across elections. We argue that combinations of Acton’s dictum with various assumptions about citizen sophistication and inter-party commitments generate tight and testable predictions which cover plausible dynamics of government formation in an otherwise stationary environment.Corruption, government dynamics

M/G/ oo with Batch Arrivals

OR 169-87 Revised Version. Original copy, WP1932-87 September 1987, also enclosed was submitted to the University of Rochester.Let po(n) be the distribution of the number N(oo) in the system at ergodicity for systems with an infinite number of servers, batch arrivals with general batch size distribution and general holding times. This distribution is of impotance to a variety of studies in congestion theory, inventory theory and storage systems. To obtain this distribution, a more general problem is addressed . In this problem, each epoch of a Poisson process gives rise to an independent stochastic function on the lattice of integers, which may be viewed as a stochastic impulse response. A continuum analogue to the lattice process is also provided

Optimal delegation with a finite number of states

This paper studies delegation without monetary transfers when the number of possible states is small, and therefore finite. To do so, we fully characterize the class of optimal delegation sets in the finite-state version of Holmstrom's (1984) seminal model and analyze their properties. Our finite state assumption entails the following results: (i) the agent never takes her ideal decision, and takes a decision strictly between her and the principal's ideal (thus compromising with the latter) in low enough states; (ii) the agent takes the same decision in high enough states, and is indifferent between the decision she takes and the next highest decision in every other state; (iii) the agent may be induced to take decisions outside the support of the principal's ideal decisions; (iv) marginal increases in the agent's bias do not (generically) cause optimal delegation sets to shrink, and may increase the variance of the decision taken by the agent. We also show that the principal and the agent may both be better off if the latter cannot distinguish between some states

Trade-offs in Organizational Architecture: Information Systems, Incentives and Work Design

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Bargaining over an endogenous agenda

We present a model of bargaining in which a committee searches over the policy space, successively amending the default by voting over proposals. Bargaining ends when proposers are unable or unwilling to amend the existing default, which is then implemented. We characterize the policies which can be implemented from any initial default in a pure strategy stationary Markov perfect equilibrium for an interesting class of environments including multi-dimensional and infinite policy spaces. Minimumwinning coalitions may not form, and a player who does not propose may nevertheless earn all of the surplus from agreement. The set of immovable policies (which are implemented, once reached as default) forms a weakly stable set; and conversely, any weakly stable set is supported by some equilibrium. If the policy space is well ordered then the committee implements the ideal policy of the last proposer in a subset of a weakly stable set. However, this result does not generalize to other cases, allowing us to explore the effects of protocol manipulation. Variations in the quota and in the set of proposers may have surprising effects on the set of immovable policies. We also show that equilibria of our model are contemporaneous perfect E-equilibria of a related model of repeated implementation with an evolving default; and that immovable policies in semi-Markovian equilibria form the largest consistent set

Bargaining over an endogenous agenda

We present a model of bargaining in which a committee searches over the policy space, successively amending the default by voting over proposals. Bargaining ends when proposers are unable or unwilling to amend the existing default, which is then implemented. We characterize the policies which can be implemented from any initial default in a pure strategy stationary Markov perfect equilibrium for an interesting class of environments including multi-dimensional and infinite policy spaces. Minimumwinning coalitions may not form, and the set of equilibrium policies may be unaffected by a change in the set of proposers. The set of stable policies (which are implemented, once reached as default) forms a weakly stable set; and conversely, any weakly stable set is supported by some equilibrium. If the policy space is well ordered then the committee implements the ideal policy of the last proposer in a subset of a weakly stable set. However, this result does not generalize to other cases, allowing us to explore the effects of protocol manipulation. Variations in the quota and in the number of proposers may have surprising effects on the set of stable decisions. We also show that equilibria of our model are contemporaneous perfect e-equilibria of a related model of repeated implementation with an evolving default; and that stable decisions in semi-Markovian equilibria form the largest consistent set

Bargaining in standing committees with an endogenous default

Committee voting has mostly been investigated from the perspective of the standard Baron–Ferejohn model of bargaining over the division of a pie, in which bargaining ends as soon as the committee reaches an agreement. In standing committees, however, existing agreements can be amended. This article studies an extension of the Baron–Ferejohn framework to a model with an evolving default that reflects this important feature of policymaking in standing committees: In each of an infinite number of periods, the ongoing default can be amended to a new policy (which is, in turn, the default for the next period). The model provides a number of quite different predictions. (i) From a positive perspective, the key distinction turns on whether the quota is less than unanimity. In that case, patient enough players waste substantial shares of the pie each period and the size principle fails in some pure strategy Markov perfect equilibria. In contrast, the unique Markov perfect equilibrium payoffs in a unanimity committee coincide with those in the corresponding Baron–Ferejohn framework. (ii) If players have heterogeneous discount factors then a large class of subgame perfect equilibria (including all Markov perfect equilibria) are inefficient

Bargaining in standing committees

Committee voting has mostly been investigated from the perspective of the standard Baron-Ferejohn model of bargaining over the division of a pie, in which bargaining ends as soon as the committee reaches an agreement. In standing committees, however, existing agreements can be amended. This paper studies an extension of the Baron-Ferejohn framework to a model with an evolving default that reflects this important feature of policymaking in standing committees: In each of an infinite number of periods, the ongoing default can be amended to a new policy (which in turn determines the default for the next period). The model provides a number of quite different predictions. In particular: (i) Substantial shares of the pie are wasted each period and the size principle fails in some pure strategy Markov perfect equilibria of non-unanimity games with patient enough players; and (ii) All Markov perfect equilibria are Pareto inefficient when discount factors are heterogenous. However, there is a unique equilibrium outcome in unanimity standing committee games, which coincides with the unique equilibrium outcome of the corresponding Baron-Ferejohn framework