This study analyzes US federal cooperative agreements (CAs) that reflect federal agencies’ willingness to invest in shared administrative governance with third-party organizations. A logic anchored in organizational economics predicts that US federal agency investments to collaborate with other non-federal organizations is positively related to an agency head’s policy-specific expertise, and that this relationship will take on greater importance when collaborating with nonprofits and private firms. These propositions are tested analyzing a novel database of 241,730 US federal CA decisions awarded by 31 federal agencies between 1988 and 2008. The statistical findings reveal support for this logic, especially for larger, more complex CAs with non-governmental organizations. The evidence also reveals that federal agencies’ CA award decisions generally have little, if any, discernible statistical association; other agency level factors such as an agency leader’s managerial skills, agency politicization, agency staff professionalism, and the loyalty of agency heads to appointing presidents (JEL H11, H57, H83, L33, & M59).

中文翻译：

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特定政策的专业知识和组织领导在共享行政治理中的重要性：来自美国联邦合作协议的证据

本研究分析了反映联邦机构愿意投资于与第三方组织共享行政治理的美国联邦合作协议 (CA)。以组织经济学为基础的逻辑预测，美国联邦机构投资与其他非联邦组织合作与机构负责人的政策特定专业知识正相关，并且在与非营利组织和私营公司合作时，这种关系将变得更加重要。对这些命题进行了测试，分析了 31 个联邦机构在 1988 年至 2008 年间授予的 241,730 个美国联邦 CA 决定的新数据库。统计结果显示了对这一逻辑的支持，特别是对于具有非政府组织的更大、更复杂的 CA。证据还表明，联邦机构的 CA 授予决定通常几乎没有（如果有的话）可辨别的统计关联；其他机构层面的因素，例如机构领导的管理技能、机构政治化、机构工作人员的专业性以及机构负责人对任命总统的忠诚度（JEL H11、H57、H83、L33 和 M59）。