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Good Cop, Bad Cop: Delegating Interrogations

Alessandro Ispano & Péter Vida

The Journal of Law and Economics2026https://doi.org/10.1086/736800article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

Abstract

A decision-maker who aims to find the truth from a suspect delegates to an interrogator with possibly misaligned preferences. The ideal interrogator is always misaligned: sometimes nicer, sometimes tougher. The decision-maker can further improve by conditioning the delegation on the evidence, which is her private information, appointing a nice interrogator when the evidence is weak and a tougher interrogator when the evidence is strong. Dynamic, endogenous, conditional delegation can credibly convey information about the strength of the evidence and implement the overall optimum with full commitment. Moreover, the decision-maker can then retain authority over decisions by relying on the interrogator’s recommendations.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1086/736800

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@article{alessandro2026,
  title        = {{Good Cop, Bad Cop: Delegating Interrogations}},
  author       = {Alessandro Ispano & Péter Vida},
  journal      = {The Journal of Law and Economics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1086/736800},
}

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Good Cop, Bad Cop: Delegating Interrogations

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.