Organization of Informative Committees by a Rational Legislature

This paper combines an organization theory perspective with rational choice techniques to study legislative design. The specific focus is on how a legislature assigns members and transfers resources to standing committees with the aim of motivating committees to specialize and to share the benefits of specialization. The stimulus for the study comes from organization theory and a long tradition of empirical congressional studies. The main analytical tool, however, is a game of incomplete information. Several testable propositions about legislative organization are derived.