Consumers and Agency Problems
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.
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 112 (2002)
Issue (Month): 478 (March)
Pages: C34-C51
| Handle: | RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:112:y:2002:i:478:p:c34-c51 |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: Office of the Secretary-General, Rm E35, The Bute Building, Westburn Lane, St Andrews, KY16 9TS, UK Phone: +44 1334 462479 Web page: http://www.res.org.uk/ Email: More information through EDIRC
|
| Order Information: | Web: http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/journal.asp?ref=0013-0133 |
References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- repec:ner:ucllon:http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/17678/ is not listed on IDEAS
- Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997.
"Formal and Real Authority in Organizations,"
Scholarly Articles
4554125, Harvard University Department of Economics.
- Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
- Philippe Aghion & Jean Tirole, 1994. "Normal and Real Authority in Organizations," Working papers 94-13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
- Philippe Aghion & Jean Tirole, 1994. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Working papers 95-8, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
- Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1994. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," IDEI Working Papers 37, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
- Milbourn, Todd T & Shockley, Richard L & Thakor, Anjan V, 2001. "Managerial Career Concerns and Investments in Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 334-51, Summer.
- Carmichael, H Lorne, 1988. "Incentives in Academics: Why Is There Tenure?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 453-72, June.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:112:y:2002:i:478:p:c34-c51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing)
or (Christopher F. Baum)If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.