The aim of this book is to develop and test theories of legislative-executive relations in a separation of powers system. We apply transaction cost analysis to the study of relations among political actors, arguing that delegation is, at its heart, a choice between congressional policy making and policy made through executive branch agencies. To understand the contours of delegation, and hence the administrative state, one must therefore first understand the strengths and weaknesses of policy making through both of these two modes and the trade-offs that legislators face when choosing between them. In this sense, our work is partly synthetic, bringing together two literatures already well established within political science, and it is partly generative, illuminating and expanding on these literatures by juxtaposing them, seeing them as alternatives, and elucidating the reciprocal influences that the branches have on each other.

We were aided by many of our colleagues in the process of preparing this work, especially, but not exclusively, Chris Achen, John Aldrich, Jeff Banks, Bob Bates, Kathy Bawn, Jonathan Bendor, John Brehm, John Carey, Gary Cox, Rui DeFigueredo, Avinash Dixit, John Ferejohn, Andrew Gelman, Oliver Hart, Will Heller, John Huber, Simon Jackman, Bob Jervis, Phil Keefer, Gary King, Ken Kollman, Matt McCubbins, Douglass North, Sunita Parikh, Torsten Persson, Roberta Romano, Ken Shepsle, Bob Shapiro, Kaare Strøm, Craig Volden, Barry Weingast, and Greg Wawro, and participants at the Harvard Political Economy Book Seminar, the Stanford Public Choice and Political Economy Seminars, and the Columbia University Political Economy Workshop.