Political Agency, Oversight, and Bias: The Instrumental Value of Politicized Policymaking
研究代理人（政策制定者）与监督者之间的互动如何影响政策质量，发现与监督者偏好相反的代理人能通过能力投资提升政策效果，对委托人（如政府）任命代理人具有指导意义。
Abstract We develop a theory of policymaking between an agent and an overseer, with a principal whose welfare is affected by agent-overseer interactions. The agent can increase the quality of policy outcomes through costly capacity investments. Oversight and agent bias jointly determine optimal agent capacity investments. We show that when oversight improves agent investment incentives the principal always benefits from an agent with biases opposite the overseer. Competing agent-overseer biases translate into higher quality policy outcomes than the principal could induce were she monitoring the agent. Effective oversight is necessary for these incentive effects. The results imply that political principals ought to consider the nature of the broader policymaking environment when appointing agents to make policy on their behalf and when designing managerial strategies aimed at motivating agents.