The proliferation of agency relationships derives as much from the increasing scope of production and exchange that creates barriers of access to information and property as from the mere existence of specialization and differentiation and the efficiencies that arise from delegating to agents. Principals entrust agents to bridge the barriers of direct physical access to information and property. They often rely on data provided by agents because their own physical distance from the sources-be they starving children in Bangladesh or Ethiopia, news events in Latin America, choice vacation property in Arizona or Florida, gold mines in South Africa, or tanks of salad oil in Bayonne, New Jersey-precludes personal data collection.

Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Imper…, loc. 23