Do at Your Own Risk: A Formal Model of Delegation with Vague Guidelines in the Bureaucratic Hierarchy

• In Event: Separation of Powers

Brief Overview

I identify the equilibrium vagueness in policy guidelines by highlighting policymakers’ deniability on implementers’ interpretation of guidelines. Under vagueness, only competent-type implementers choose a “gray-area policy” at their own risk.

Author

• Jieun Kim, University of California-Berkeley