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On Selecting the Right Agent

Author

Listed:
  • Salvador Barber‡
  • Geoffroy de Clippel
  • Alejandro Neme
  • Kareen Rozen

Abstract

Each period, a principal must assign one of two agents to a new task. Profit is stochastically higher when the agent is qualified for the task, but the principal cannot observe qualification. Her only decision is which of the two agents to assign, if any, given the public history of selections and profits, but she cannot commit to any rule. While she maximizes expected discounted profits, each agent maximizes his expected discounted selection probabilities. We fully characterize when the principal's firstbest payoff is attainable in equilibrium, and identify a simple, belief-free, strategy profile achieving this first-best whenever feasible. Additionally, we provide a partial characterization of the case with many agents and discuss how our analysis extends to other variations of the game.

Suggested Citation

  • Salvador Barber‡ & Geoffroy de Clippel & Alejandro Neme & Kareen Rozen, 2020. "On Selecting the Right Agent," Working Papers 2020-11, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bro:econwp:2020-11
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    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. David Lagziel & Yevgeny Tsodikovich, 2023. "Second Opinions and the Humility Threshold," Working Papers 2305, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    3. Axel Niemeyer & Justus Preusser, 2023. "Simple Allocation with Correlated Types," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_486, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    4. Rantakari, Heikki, 2023. "How to reward honesty?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 129-145.
    5. Solan, Eilon & Zhao, Chang, 2021. "Dynamic monitoring under resource constraints," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 476-491.
    6. Th'eo Durandard, 2023. "Dynamic delegation in promotion contests," Papers 2308.05668, arXiv.org.
    7. Yonghang Ji & Allen Vong, 2025. "Task assignment as dynamic incentives," Papers 2511.05338, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    8. Chen, Yi, 2022. "Dynamic delegation with a persistent state," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(4), November.
    9. Daniel Fershtman & Kfir Eliaz & Alexander Frug, 2025. "Clerks," Economics Working Papers 1928, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    10. Kishishita, Daiki, 2020. "(Not) delegating decisions to experts: The effect of uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    11. Lipnowski, Elliot & Ramos, João, 2020. "Repeated delegation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

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