Article on Delegation

This seems about right:

Why do Politicians Delegate?

ALBERTO F. ALESINA
Harvard University - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
GUIDO TABELLINI
University of Bocconi - IGIER; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)
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July 2005

Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 2079


Abstract:
Opportunistic politicians maximize the probability of reelection and rents from office holding. Can it be optimal from their point of view to delegate policy choices to independent bureaucracies? The answer is yes: politicians will delegate some policy tasks, though in general not those that would be socially optimal to delegate. In particular, politicians tend not to delegate coalition forming redistributive policies and policies that create large rents or effective campaign contributions. Instead they prefer to delegate risky policies to shift risk (and blame) on bureaucracies.

Reminds me of the work of David Schoenbrod.