Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
By applying the Revelation Principle, we focus on how a sponsor, who possesses political authority, could minimise the efficiency losses when bureaucrats are experts - that is, when they control information about the true costs of public services production. Our results come in striking contrast to those in the literature on bureaucracies and public procurement. In a two-types setting, and in the absence of monitoring and control mechanisms, we find that the agency is productively efficient. Under certain conditions, the agency is also allocatively efficient, while, under others, the low-cost bureau oversupplies and the high-cost agency undersupplies its output. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006