"Informational constraints not only limit the ability of shareholders to control rent-seeking behavior on the part of top managers, they also limit the ability of top managers to control rent-seeking behavior on the part of their subordinates. How much of the time spent by a middle-level manager to prepare a report was absolutely necessary? To what extent was it devoted to acquiring information, of marginal value to the firm, but which would make that manager look relatively good compared to other managers? To what extent are the efforts and resources spent by a manager to cultivate a client really being directed to enhance that manager's job opportunities? Private and organizational objectives are intricately intertwined, and in many cases they are not conflicting. But at the margin they frequently are, and there seems little reason to doubt that private objectives frequently, perhaps usually, win out."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesJews from the United StatesEconomists from the United StatesNobel laureates in Economics
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chap. 13 : Asking the Right Questions: Theory and Evidence
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Joseph Stiglitz
72 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Joseph Stiglitz →
Related Quotes
"There was an incongruity between many of the models that we were taught and the policy positions that our teachers (a…"
"Once I undertook the analysis of a problem, I often looked at it from a variety of perspectives. I approached the pro…"
"There is little doubt that the observation that quality may depend on price (productivity on wages; default probabili…"
"Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working; their problem is not low wages. The problem comes…"
"The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there."
"They [free market policies] were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of thes…"
"It's actually a tribute to the quality of economics teaching that they have persuaded so many generations of students…"
"The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism."
"The theories that I (and others) helped develop explained why unfettered markets often not only do not lead to social…"
"I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights. We …"