IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctl/louvir/2001026.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Delegation and Organizational Design

Author

Listed:
  • Axel GAUTIER

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

  • Dimitri PAOLINI

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract

This paper concentrates on the question of organizational design under asymmetric information. The design of the organization has two parts: first, communication channels between the members should be established and second, the tasks should be allocated to the party that performs it in the most efficient way. We show that if the decisions are delegated to the agents, the agent's decisions reveal the information they have to the principal. Delegation is then a mechanism to transfer information. Given that delegation is costly, the principal should decide how many decisions she delegates. In this paper, we show that delegation is only partial. The agents do not receive power over all decisions and some agents may receive power will the other will not even if they are identical.

Suggested Citation

  • Axel GAUTIER & Dimitri PAOLINI, 2001. "Delegation and Organizational Design," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2001026, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvir:2001026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2001-26.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    2. 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.
    3. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 1994. "The Firm as a Communication Network," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 809-839.
    4. Ellingsen, Tore, 1998. "Externalities vs internalities: a model of political integration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 251-268, May.
    5. Laffont, J.-J., 1999. "Political Economy, Information and Incentives," Papers 99.516, Toulouse - GREMAQ.
    6. Riley, John G, 1979. "Informational Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 331-359, March.
    7. Michael H. Riordan & David E. M. Sappington, 1987. "Information, Incentives, and Organizational Mode," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 243-263.
    8. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    9. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    10. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    11. Alan Schwartz, 1997. "Incomplete Contracts," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm73, Yale School of Management.
    12. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 1997. "Collusion under Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 875-912, July.
    13. Melumad, Nahum & Mookherjee, Dilip & Reichelstein, Stefan, 1992. "A theory of responsibility centers," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 445-484, December.
    14. Armstrong, M., 1994. "Delegation and discretion," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 9421, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    15. Seabright, Paul, 1996. "Accountability and decentralisation in government: An incomplete contracts model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 61-89, January.
    16. Radner, Roy, 1993. "The Organization of Decentralized Information Processing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 1109-1146, September.
    17. Jean Tirole, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 741-782, July.
    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. Axel Gautier & Dimitri Paolini, 2007. "Delegation and Information Revelation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 574-597, December.
    2. Luelfesmann, Christoph & Kessler, Anke & Myers, Gordon M., 2015. "The architecture of federations: Constitutions, bargaining, and moral hazard," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 18-29.
    3. Grüner, Hans Peter, 2007. "Protocol Design and (De-)Centralization," CEPR Discussion Papers 6357, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Baiman, Stanley & Rajan, Madhav V., 2002. "Incentive issues in inter-firm relationships," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 213-238, April.
    5. Patrick Legros & Andrew Newman, 2000. "Interference, Contracts and Authority with Insecure Communication," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0650, Econometric Society.
    6. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2005. "Allocating Control in Agency Problems with Limited Liability and Sequential Hidden Actions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(2), pages 318-336, Summer.
    7. Jeremy C. Stein, 2002. "Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized versus Hierarchical Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1891-1921, October.
    8. Bickenbach, Frank, 2000. "Regulation of Europe's network industries: the perspective of the new economic theory of federalism," Kiel Working Papers 977, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Hindriks, Jean & Lockwood, Ben, 2009. "Decentralization and electoral accountability: Incentives, separation and voter welfare," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 385-397, September.
    10. Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized vs. Hierarchical Firms," NBER Working Papers 7705, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Barankay, Iwan & Lockwood, Ben, 2007. "Decentralization and the productive efficiency of government: Evidence from Swiss cantons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 1197-1218, June.
    12. Martin Bodenstein & Heinrich Ursprung, 2005. "Political yardstick competition, economic integration, and constitutional choice in a federation:," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 329-352, September.
    13. José María Liberti & Mitchell A. Petersen, 2018. "Information: Hard and Soft," NBER Working Papers 25075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Michele Ruta, 2005. "Economic Theories of Political (Dis)integration," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, February.
    15. Ricardo Alonso & Wouter Dessein & Niko Matouschek, 2008. "When Does Coordination Require Centralization?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 145-179, March.
    16. Hans Degryse & Luc Laeven & Steven Ongena, 2009. "The Impact of Organizational Structure and Lending Technology on Banking Competition," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 13(2), pages 225-259.
    17. Andreas Roider, 2006. "Delegation of Authority as an Optimal (In)Complete Contract," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 162(3), pages 391-411, September.
    18. Lulfesmann, Christoph, 2002. "Central governance or subsidiarity: A property-rights approach to federalism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1379-1397, September.
    19. Fares, M’hand, 2005. "Quels fondements à l’incomplétude des contrats?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 81(3), pages 535-555, Septembre.
    20. Kim, Doyoung & Lawarree, Jacques & Shin, Dongsoo, 2004. "Exit option in hierarchical agency," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1265-1287, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Delagation; Hierarchy; Assymmetric information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

    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:ctl:louvir:2001026. 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: Virginie LEBLANC (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    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.