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Stephen Diamond's avatar

But how is it exactly that citizens can pay enough attention to the regulating government to help it choose a good regulation role, but can’t pay enough attention to the regulated government, tempting that government to make bad decisions? How is this supposed to work, even in theory?

That strikes me as an odd take on regulating government. (Odd just because it attributes an irrational purpose where rational purposes are readily available.) I would characterize the essence of the control tactic as designing institutions that are impelled by their own structural interests to counter the worst problems of the regulated component.

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RobinHanson's avatar

This is a reasonable concept, but what I want to see is a literature that explores such concepts, working out more detailed formal models and more systematically seeing what actual patterns of governance they can account for.

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