Sequential Advocacy

Klaas Beniers (), Robert Dur () and Otto Swank ()

No 02-016/1, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: The collection of information necessary for decision-making is often delegated to agents (e.g. bureaucrats, advisors, lawyers). If both the pros and cons of a decision have to be examined, it is better to use competing agents instead of a single agent. The reason is that two conflicting pieces of information cancel each other out. Using two agents, each searching for one cause yields full information collection at minimum costs. This provides a rationale for advocacy in political and judicial systems. In this paper, we provide a rationale for the sequential nature of information collection in advocacy systems. If two agents search simultaneously, the incentive to continue searching is affected by the information found by the other agent. This forces the principal to leave rents to the agents. If agents search sequentially, the reward can be made conditional on the information found in earlier stages. This reduces the cost of information collection. However, sequential advocacy implies either a more sluggish decision-making process or a less-informed decision.

Keywords: Information collection; advocates; sequential; budgetary process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 D80 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
Date: 2002-02-08, Revised 2003-06-10
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tinbergen.nl/discussionpapers/02016.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20020016

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute
Series data maintained by Walther Schoonenberg ().