This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Dunlop, C. A. Articles by James, O. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Principal-Agent Modelling and Learning

The European Commission, Experts and Agricultural Hormone Growth Promoters

University of Exeter, UK, c.a.dunlop{at}ex.ac.uk

Oliver James

University of Exeter, UK, o.james{at}ex.ac.uk

Principal-agent modelling has become a very influential way of thinking about bureaucratic politics in a wide range of settings. Simple agency models have recently been extended and bureaucratic relationships placed in their wider temporal and socio-political contexts. By developing a conceptualization of principal-agent learning this article offers a nuanced account of the extent to which principals can learn to develop institutions that enhance their political control of bureaucratic agents and predispose those agents toward the principal's preferences, limiting adverse selection and moral hazard problems. The revised model is applied to the context of the European Commission's selection and management of scientific committees in the case of agricultural hormone growth promoters. The findings not only confirm the usefulness of more dynamic accounts of principal-agent relationships that eschew ahistoricism and acontextualism, they also suggest that extended principal-agent models should include constraints on learning by principals. In this case the principal's learning was reactive — relying heavily upon external actors and venues to do their thinking for them.

Key Words: adverse selection • European Commission policy making • expert advice • learning • moral hazard • principal-agent

Public Policy and Administration, Vol. 22, No. 4, 403-422 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0952076707081585


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?