Organization of Informative Committees by a Rational Legislature

TLDR

The study is grounded in organization theory and the empirical tradition of congressional research. The paper investigates how legislatures assign members and allocate resources to standing committees to promote specialization and shared benefits, using organization theory and rational choice. The authors employ a game of incomplete information to analyze legislative design. The study derives several testable propositions about legislative organization.

Abstract

This paper combines an organization theory perspective with rational choice techniques to study legislative design. The specific focus is on how a legislature assigns members and transfers resources to standing committees with the aim of motivating committees to specialize and to share the benefits of specialization. The stimulus for the study comes from organization theory and a long tradition of empirical congressional studies. The main analytical tool, however, is a game of incomplete information. Several testable propositions about legislative organization are derived.