Robust Delegation

Speaker：Hu Ju, Tenured Associate Professor, Peking University

Host：Dai Yun, Associate Professor, Lingnan College

Time and Date：14:30, April 17, 2026 (Friday)

Venue：C.S.LAM Conference Room (103), Lingnan Hall

Language：English + Chinese

Abstract：

We study delegation rules by principals uninformed of the underlying state (external uncertainty) and the preferences of better-informed agents (internal uncertainty). Evaluating delegation sets with a max-min criterion, we show that in multidimensional environments optimal delegation sets are simple: for broad classes of preference uncertainty, optimal delegation sets are convex. Thus, interval delegation is always (robustly) optimal when the action space is unidimensional. Internal uncertainty can justify greater discretion, allowing actions that are never optimal for the principal in any state; and a version of the ally principle holds: alignment along enough dimensions implies unconstrained delegation along all dimensions.

Profile:

Hu Ju is a Tenured Associate Professor of Economics at the National School of Development, Peking University, and an Associate Editor of China Economic Quarterly. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. His primary research areas are microeconomic theory, game theory, and information economics. His research has been published in leading journals of economic theory such as the Journal of Economic Theory and The RAND Journal of Economics.