文章基本信息

标题：Over-Accountability
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作者：Gersen, Jacob E. ; Stephenson, Matthew C.
期刊名称：Journal of Legal Analysis
印刷版ISSN：2161-7201
电子版ISSN：1946-5319
出版年度：2014
卷号：6
期号：2
页码：185-243
DOI：10.1093/jla/lau008
出版社：Oxford University Press
摘要：Although ensuring the “accountability” of agents to their principals is widely considered a core objective of institutional design, recent work in political economy has identified and elucidated an important class of situations in which effective accountability mechanisms can decrease, rather than increase, an agent’s likelihood of acting in her principal’s interests. The problem, which we call “over-accountability,” is essentially an information problem: sometimes even a fully rational but imperfectly informed principal (e.g., the citizens) will reward “bad” actions rather than “good” actions by an agent (e.g. the President). In these cases, not only do accountability mechanisms fail to remedy the agency problem inherent in representative government, they actually make the problem worse. This Article offers a conceptual and empirical overview of over-accountability problems, and also considers a range of potential solutions. By surveying both the distortions themselves and a range of possible responses, this article aspires to assist both public law scholars and institutional reformers in producing more effective solutions.