Travail de recherche/Working paper
| Résumé : | I study a model of delegated experimentation in which actions signal agents’ underlying type—careerist or partisan. I show that careerist agents pander to the future by choosing the action mostlikely to be preferred ex post by the principal. I discuss when and why this behaviour differsfrom selecting the principal’s ex ante preferred action, which balances static and dynamic learningbenefits. I conclude my analysis by considering implications for agents’ responsiveness to changesin actions’ popularity, for the benefits and costs of transparency, and for the role of partisanshipstructures. |
