Government agencies typically have a certain freedom to choose among dierent possible courses of action. This paper studies agency decision-making on priorities in a principal-agent framework with multi-tasking. The agency head (the principal) has discretion over part of the agency's budget to incentivize his sta (agents) in the pickup of cases. The head is concerned with society's benets from the agency's overall performance, but also with the organization's public image as formed from pursuing high-prole cases and various non-case specic activities. Based on their talent and the contracts oered by the head, sta ocials choose which type of task to pursue: complex major, yet dicult to complete cases with an uncertain outcome, or basic minor and simple cases with a high probability of success. The size of the agency's discretionary budget inuences not only the scale, but also the type of tasks it will engage in. Social welfare is non-monotonic and discontinuous in the agency's budget. Small changes in the budget may cause extensive restructuring from major to minor tasks, or vice versa. A budget cut can increase welfare more than too little extra budget would. For lower binding budgets, the head continues to suboptimally incentivize work on complex tasks, when the agency should have shifted down to simpler tasks. In determining the discretionary space of the agency head, the budget-setter can limit the extraction of resources, but thereby also reduces the benets from the head's superior information on how to incentivize the ocials. Antitrust authorities serve as one illustration of policy implications for institutional design, including optimal budgetting and agency mergers.
The paper deals with the thermal balance of a metal hydride separator, primarily a tank containing a metal hydride alloy subjected to heating and cooling processes caused by absorption and desorption. As during the equipment operation it is necessary to ensure heating and cooling, the amount of the required heat to be supplied and removed must be identified. The article also deals with hydrogen separation from undesired components of synthetic gas which is formed in a plasma reactor during the waste gasification process.
Government agencies have a certain freedom to choose among different possible courses of action. This article studies agency decision making on priorities in a principal–agent framework with multiple tasks. Agency leadership has discretion over part of the agency’s budget to incentivize staff in the pickup of cases. The head is concerned not only with society’s benefits from the agency’s overall performance, but also with the organization’s public image. Based on their talent and the contracts offered by the head, staff officials choose which type of task to pursue: complex major cases with an uncertain outcome or basic minor and simple cases with a higher probability of success. We show how the size of the agency’s discretionary budget influences both the scale and type of tasks it will engage in. Small changes in the budget can cause extensive restructuring from major to minor tasks, or vice versa, causing social welfare jumps. The mechanism provides overhead authorities with some control over the priorities of supposedly independent agencies. It applies generally to government bureaus with the formal and informal discretion to choose their tasks. Antitrust authorities serve as one illustration of implications for institutional design.
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