Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Battle for Credit

Should politicians be allowed to reveal whether policy outcomes were caused by government agencies or should they always take responsibility? To answer this question, we develop a model in which a reputation-concerned agency exerts effort over time and a politician can publicly communicate about who bears responsibility for successes and failures. Although politicians want to claim credit and deflect blame, this also indirectly affects the reputation of bureaucratic agencies and their willingness to exert effort. We show that politician's messages about transparency can be good to incentivize bureaucrats as a prospective effect, but may have negative implications down the line. In equilibrium, the politician's considerations for future effort and her own reputation constrain her. Our results have various implications for institutions and democratic norms related to transparency about responsibility for political failures and successes. Although transparency improves selection of better politicians, it may have negative implications for government agencies' incentives to work hard.