Optimally Biased Expertise
Publikation: Working paper › Preprint › Forskning
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Optimally Biased Expertise. / Ilinov, Pavel; Senkov, Maxim; Matveenko, Andrei; Starkov, Egor.
2209.13689. udg. arXiv.org, 2022.Publikation: Working paper › Preprint › Forskning
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TY - UNPB
T1 - Optimally Biased Expertise
AU - Ilinov, Pavel
AU - Senkov, Maxim
AU - Matveenko, Andrei
AU - Starkov, Egor
PY - 2022/9/27
Y1 - 2022/9/27
N2 - This paper shows that the principal can strictly benefit from delegating a decision to an agent whose opinion differs from that of the principal. We consider a "delegated expertise" problem, in which the agent has an advantage in information acquisition relative to the principal, as opposed to having preexisting private information. When the principal is ex ante predisposed towards some action, it is optimal for her to hire an agent who is predisposed towards the same action, but to a smaller extent, since such an agent would acquire more information, which outweighs the bias stemming from misalignment. We show that belief misalignment between an agent and a principal is a viable instrument in delegation, performing on par with contracting and communication in a class of problems.
AB - This paper shows that the principal can strictly benefit from delegating a decision to an agent whose opinion differs from that of the principal. We consider a "delegated expertise" problem, in which the agent has an advantage in information acquisition relative to the principal, as opposed to having preexisting private information. When the principal is ex ante predisposed towards some action, it is optimal for her to hire an agent who is predisposed towards the same action, but to a smaller extent, since such an agent would acquire more information, which outweighs the bias stemming from misalignment. We show that belief misalignment between an agent and a principal is a viable instrument in delegation, performing on par with contracting and communication in a class of problems.
U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2209.13689
DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2209.13689
M3 - Preprint
VL - econ.TH
BT - Optimally Biased Expertise
PB - arXiv.org
ER -
ID: 333395422