#  Francesco Squintani (Alesina Seminar) 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 21, 2023** 

 04:30PM - 09:45PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Littauer 301 (Hansen-Mason Lounge)**  



 

 



 

 See the seminar's full schedule here: [Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy](/program-political-economy)

###  **Today's Speaker**

 Francesco Squintani (University of Warwick), "The Choice of Political Advisers,” (w/Hyungmin Park)

###  **Abstract**

 We study the choice of multiple advisers, balancing loyalty, competence, and diverse perspectives. A leader can consult one or both of two advisers. One has views that align closely with the leader's, but her information is imprecise or correlated with the leader's. The other is more biased but has independent and more precise information. We find that the leader consults the most informed expert, adding the other adviser only if the additional communication does not hinder truthful advice from the former. If the leader consults both advisers, we paradoxically find that increasing the more biased expert's bias causes the dismissal of the other adviser. Hence, information trumps political proximity, when seeking advice. Exactly the opposite happens when it comes to delegating decision-making. The leader may choose to delegate, but only to the less biased adviser. The analysis is generalized to the case where the most informed adviser is not necessarily more biased. Reducing the probability that the more informed adviser is also more biased leads to hiring also the other expert. The leader may delegate to the uncertain-bias adviser, although she is possibly more biased, because she is better at aggregating information.

 *Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies*.

 Zoom links for the Alesina Seminar are distributed via the seminar's mailing list. You can [subscribe to the Alesina Seminar Mailing List](https://lists.iq.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/ppe_list) here.

 See the seminar's full schedule at the [Alesina Seminar page](/program-political-economy).

 All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.



 

 



 

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- [ Alesina Seminar on Political Economy ](/program/seminar-political-economy)
 
 

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