Bureaucrats or politicians?
By: Alberto Alesina, Guido Tabellini.
Contributors: Tabellini, Guido Enrico, 1956-; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 10241; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 10241.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Politicians.; Civil service.; Bureaucracy.; Delegation of authority.
Description: "Policies are typically chosen by politicians and bureaucrats.  This paper investigates the efficiency criteria for allocating policy tasks to elected policymakers (politicians) or non elected bureaucrats.  Politicians are more efficient for tasks that do not involve too much specific technical ability relative to effort; there is uncertainty about ex post preferences of the public and flexibility is valuable; time inconsistency is not an issue; small but powerful vested interests do not have large stakes in the policy outcome; effective decisions over policies require taking into account policy complementarities and compensating the losers.  We then compare this benchmark with the case in which politicians choose when to delegate and we show that the two generally differ"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.