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Commitment versus Flexibility with Costly Verification

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  • Marina Halac
  • Pierre Yared

Abstract

A principal faces an agent who is better informed but biased toward higher actions. She can verify the agent’s information and specify his permissible actions. We show that if the verification cost is small enough, a threshold with an escape clause (TEC) is optimal: the agent either chooses an action below a threshold or requests verification and the efficient action above the threshold. For higher costs, however, the principal may require verification only for intermediate actions, dividing the delegation set. TEC is always optimal if the principal cannot commit to inefficient allocations following the verification decision and result.

Suggested Citation

  • Marina Halac & Pierre Yared, 2020. "Commitment versus Flexibility with Costly Verification," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(12), pages 4523-4573.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/710560
    DOI: 10.1086/710560
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    Cited by:

    1. Ngene, Geoffrey M. & Tah, Kenneth A., 2023. "How are policy uncertainty, real economy, and financial sector connected?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Arawatari, Ryo & Ono, Tetsuo, 2021. "Public debt rule breaking by time-inconsistent voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    3. Christian Moser & Pierre Yared, 2022. "Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 27-50, October.
    4. Chistoph Grosse-Steffen & Laura Pagenhardt & Malte Rieth, 2021. "Committed to Flexible Fiscal Rules," Working papers 854, Banque de France.
    5. Alireza Fallah & Michael I. Jordan, 2023. "Contract Design With Safety Inspections," Papers 2311.02537, arXiv.org.
    6. Zhou, Junya, 2023. "Costly verification and commitment in persuasion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 1100-1142.
    7. Devdariani, Saba & Hirsch, Alexander V., 2023. "Voter attention and electoral accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    8. Christian Moser & Pierre Yared, 2022. "Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 27-50, October.

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