Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization Advance Access originally published online on August 16, 2006
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 2007 23(1):141-160; doi:10.1093/jleo/ewm006
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Common and Exclusive Agencies and Partial Delegation
University of Texas at Dallas
* School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas Box 830688, Richardson, TX 75083. Email: siqueira{at}utdallas.edu.
Within the context of common agency, the article examines separation and partial delegation. The first entails breaking the multiple-task agency into smaller single-task agencies, whereas the second allows principals to substitute some of their efforts for the agency's. With respect to the first alternative, it is shown that common agency can be sustained against separation by the presence of strong complements. For the second alternative, principals partially delegate their effort and retain the right to influence agency output at a later stage of the game. Although this tends to weaken agency incentives, principals may prefer this version of common agency than one under full delegation and may prefer it to an exclusive one.