Editors’ Introduction to JTP issue 30.4
| Author | John W Patty,Torun Dewan |
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629818804077 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Editors’ Introduction to JTP issue 30.4 |
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2018, Vol.30(4) 385–387
ÓThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0951629818804077
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Editors’ Introduction to JTP
issue 30.4
To r u n D e w a n
London School of Economicsand Political Science, London, UK
John W Patty
Emory University,Atlanta, GA, USA
This issue of Journal of Theoretical Politicscontains five original articles focused on
the design of political and economic institutions. In ‘‘Rivalry among agents seeking
large budgets,’’ Kimiko Terai and Amihai Glazer consider delegation and resource
provision in dynamic principal agent situations where a single principal has two
agents about whose preferences the principal has incomplete information. Terai
and Glazer’s model illustrates a classic and important trade-off: the principal can
sometimes achieve separation (i.e., screen the agents) by allocating large budgets to
the agents initially, but this comes at a cost, as one or both of the agents might use
their budget in ways that do not benefit the principal. However, holding too much
of the budget as a reward in subsequent periods for the agent who reveals himself
or herself as having preferences similar to the principal can obviously induce pool-
ing, which benefits the principal in the first period, but leaves the principal unin-
formed in the second period. Terai and Glazer also consider the positive incentive
effects (from the principal’s standpoint) of maintaining uncertainty among the
agents about principal’s true preferences.
Per F. Andersson and Johannes Lindvall consider the impact of power-sharing
arrangements on crisis management. In ‘‘Crises, investments, and political institu-
tions,’’ Andersson and Lindvall present a model of power-sharing and investment
that illustrates the fundamental linkage between both crisis management and
investment and the (in)ability of an incumbent government to credibly commit to
Corresponding author:
Torun Dewan, London School of Economics & PoliticalScience, London, UK.
Email: t.dewan@lse.ac.uk
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