Agents are zero-sum---using one excludes the other.
David Epstein and Sharyn O’Halloran 99, 1999, Epstein is a Fellow at the Department of PoliSci and Director Center on Political Economy and Comparative Institutional Analysis a Columbia; O’Halloran is a Fellow at the Department of PoliSci, School of International and Public Affairs, and Director Center on Political Economy and Comparative Institutional Analysis at Columbia, DELEGATING POWERS: A TRANSACTION COST POLITICS APPROACH TO POLICY MAKING UNDER SEPARATE POWERS, pg. 7, HKeef
Our approach to this question begins with the observation that policy can be made in Congress, through delegation of authority to executive agencies, or by some mixture of these two. Furthermore, the amount of discretionary authority delegated is a decision made by Congress, which can write either detailed legislation that leaves the executive with little latitude in implementation or vague laws that leave executive actors with broad discretionary powers. And when deciding where policy will be made, Congress trades off the internal policy production costs of the committee system against the external costs of delegation. Thus, Congress’s decision to delegate is similar to a firm’s make-or-buy decision; hence our usage of the term ‘‘transaction cost politics.’’