Bureaucrats or politicians? Part 11: Multiple policy tasks

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Alesina, Alberto; Tabellini, Guido
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.06.004
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 426-447
• 关键词: politics; DELEGATION; bureaucracies

摘要

Policies are typically chosen by politicians and bureaucrats. This paper investigates first the normative criteria with which to allocate policy tasks to elected policymakers (politicians) or non-elected bureaucrats. Politicians are preferable if there is uncertainty about social preferences and flexibility is valuable, or if policy complementarities and compensation of losers is important. Bureaucrats are preferable if time inconsistency and short-termism is an issue, or if vested interests have large stakes in the policy outcome. We then compare this normative benchmark with the case in which politicians choose when to delegate and show that the two generally differ. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.