They exist, but making them powerful and effective requires exceptional imagination, effort, and freedom within government. Efficiency demands smaller rather than greater use of inputs per unit of output. He must also be under pressure to do what seems best. Production possibilities differ widely from time to time, from place to place. Any single pattern, no matter how well adapted to some situations, will be unsuited to others, and definitely bad for some.
Freedom permits the public to benefit from such variety.
Government agencies cannot be expected to improve efficiency to the extent that, and as promptly as, permitted by changes in technology and changes in the prices of inputs. The governmental agency, whether as an operating entity or one regulating private businesses, f aces more than one disadvantage as a promoter of production efficiency. So does the business firm or the labor union which is somewhat insulated from the free competition of others. Not the only examples in America are to be found in the makework policies of labor unions and obsolete local laws affecting new construction. As producers, many of us may nurse a sneaking sympathy for restraints which impede the growth of productivity if they seem to create demand for our labor or what we have to sell.