IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/inrvec/v62y2015i4p363-380.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Delegation in sovereign wealth funds

Author

Listed:
  • Artur Grigoryan

Abstract

This paper models the incentives of a politician to delegate decision-making power in a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to an independent external manager. I analyze in a repeated two-stage game whether the delegation is socially optimal and demonstrate under which circumstances it takes place. First, the politician decides whether to delegate. Second, based on his decision, two alternative subgames take place where output is produced and voters decide on reelection of the politician. I show that delegation increases the SWF’s output. Two effects matter: First, the conflict of interests between politician and manager disciplines both players and allows voters to mitigate their informational problem. Second, as a consequence of management outsourcing and higher transparency, the SWF’s average productivity improves. Less competent politicians are more willing to delegate as it improves their chances to be reelected. In general, the delegation is more likely if the quality of existing political and economic institutions is low. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Artur Grigoryan, 2015. "Delegation in sovereign wealth funds," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 62(4), pages 363-380, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:inrvec:v:62:y:2015:i:4:p:363-380
    DOI: 10.1007/s12232-015-0232-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12232-015-0232-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12232-015-0232-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 2007. "Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 169-179, March.
    2. Edwin M. Truman, 2009. "A Blueprint for Sovereign Wealth Fund Best Practices," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 9(1), pages 429-451.
    3. Alessandro Fedele & Andrea Mantovani, 2008. "Complementarity, Coordination, and Credit," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(2), pages 230-253, June.
    4. Mr. Eric Le Borgne & Mr. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2007. "Dynamic Incentives and the Optimal Delegation of Political Power," IMF Working Papers 2007/091, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Torsten Persson & Gérard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 1997. "Separation of Powers and Political Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1163-1202.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    7. Berganza, Juan Carlos, 2000. "Two Roles for Elections: Disciplining the Incumbent and Selecting a Competent Candidate," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(1-2), pages 165-193, October.
    8. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    9. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Artur Grigoryan, 2011. "Incentives and the Delegation of Decision Making Power in Sovereign Wealth Funds," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201117, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. Artur Grigoryan, 2011. "Incentives and the delegation of decision making power in sovereign wealth funds," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 146-11, Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2010. "A Theory of Military Dictatorships," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-42, January.
    4. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "Cronyism in Business, Public Sector and Politics," MPRA Paper 30231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jordi Blanes i Vidal & Clare Leaver, 2008. "Pandering Judges," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 002, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    6. Galina Zudenkova, 2015. "Political cronyism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 473-492, March.
    7. Marcus Drometer, 2012. "Bureaucrats and short-term politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 149-163, April.
    8. Ujhelyi, Gergely, 2014. "Civil service reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 15-25.
    9. Vidal, Jordi Blanes I & Leaver, Clare, 2008. "Pandering judges," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58174, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Margaret Stevens & Jordi Blanes i Vidal, 2008. "Pandering Judges," Economics Series Working Papers 390, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    11. James A. Robinson & Ragnar Torvik, 2011. "Institutional Comparative Statics," NBER Working Papers 17106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Ujhelyi, Gergely, 2014. "Civil service reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 15-25.
    13. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    14. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    15. Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Credible communication in dynastic government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 59-86, January.
    16. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2020. "Electoral Competition with Costly Policy Changes: A Dynamic Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 14858, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Gilles Saint‐Paul & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2016. "A Theory of Political Entrenchment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 1238-1263, June.
    18. Uwe Dulleck & Berthold U. Wigger, 2012. "Expert Politicians, Electoral Control, and Fiscal Restraints," CESifo Working Paper Series 3738, CESifo.
    19. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    20. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign wealth fund (SWF); Policy delegation; External management; Transparency; D7; D8; F3; G2;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:inrvec:v:62:y:2015:i:4:p:363-380. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.