Motivating Careerists

Abstract

Motivating careerists is challenging for political organizations. Without explicit contracts, careerists often pander to public opinions or their superiors' preferences. Worse, when tasked with implementing these distorted decisions, they tend to underinvest in the necessary efforts. We analyze the motivation problem by examining how a careerist agent fulfills these roles on behalf of a principal across various information structures. Importantly, the principal can credibly commit to performance-based reward schemes to incentivize correct decisions and diligent implementation. However, such schemes are feasible only if the principal observes policy consequences while backing away from implementation details. Along the way, we characterize the principal-optimal information structure. Putting theoretical findings into practice, we explore the underlying incentive structures and their policy implications.