Consumers and Agency Problems
研究消费者在纠正代理人错误中的作用，区分消费者与委托人偏好一致或分歧的情况，发现消费者反馈在偏好一致时改善资源配置，在分歧时可能降低福利。
Consumers solve many agency problems, by pointing out when they believe that agents have made mistakes. I consider the role that consumers play in inducing efficient behaviour by agents. I distinguish cases where consumers have similar preferences to the principal, from those where they diverge. In the former case, allowing consumer feedback improves allocations, and increasing consumer information is unambiguously beneficial. Where consumers disagree with principals over desired outcomes, which characterises many public sector benefits, consumers" feedback about the performance of agents can reduce welfare. This may result in efficiently restricting the ability of consumers to complain about agent performance. Copyright Royal Economic Society 2002.