| I apply a messenger-game framework to analyze information transmission in the U.S. Congress under the more realistic assumption that committee members derive their technical expertise mainly from interest groups. It is discovered that the committee system does not improve information transmission efficiency in a way suggested by the existing literatures, no matter how close the interest of a committee aligns with that of the floor. I then suggest that committees are useful to the floor because they specialize in knowing the incentives and biases of interest groups.; I also argue that the Congress (or principal of any formal organization) can extract more credible information from a partisan adviser by establishing and delegating part of the decision rights to a messenger. It is even better for the principal if the messenger is "captured" by the special interest of the adviser. This new rationale of delegation is interpreted in a general incomplete-contract framework. As an application, I also compare the information transmission efficiency between a separation-of-power political system and a centralized political system.; I also study the empirical question of legislative rule selection in the thesis. |
