QUESTION 2: ‘Principal-agent theory is useful for framing questions, not for answering them.' Discuss.
See the departmental reading list reading list for Hilary Week 7(a) . You might also take a look at:
Overview
Horn, Murray J (1995) The Political Economy of Public Administration, 1995
Miller, G.J., The political evolution of principal-agent models, Annual Review of Political Science, 8: 203-225, 2005
Waterman, Richard W. and Kenneth J. Meier, "Principal-Agent Models: An Expansion?" Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 8 (April): 173-202, 1998
Lane, Jan-Erik, Public Administration and Public Management: The Principal-Agent Perspective, 2005
Application of the theory
Krause, G A. and K J. Meier (eds.), Politics, Policy, and Organizations: Frontiers in the Scientific Study of Bureaucracy, esp. the Conclusion, 2003
Special issue of the European Journal of Political Research, 37 (3), 2000
Weingast, Barry “The congressional-bureaucratic system: a principal-agent perspective (with applications to the SEC)” in Public Choice 44 1984 pp. 147–88
Weingast and Moran “Bureaucratic discretion or congressional control? “Regulatory policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission” in Journal of. Political Economy 91 1983 pp. 765–800
McCubbins, M, Noll and Weingast “Administrative Procedures and Political Control” in Journal of Law Economics and Organization 1987 3 (2) pp. 243-279
Banks, J.S. and Weingast B.R. “The Political Control of Bureaucracies Under Asymmetric Information” American Journal of Political Science 1992 36(2)
Huwang, Y. “Managing Chinese Bureaucrats: An Institutional Economics Perspective” in Political Studies: 2002 Vol. 50 pp. 61–79.
