Agency Performance and Executive Pay in Government: An Empirical Test

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Binderkrantz, Anne Skorkjaer; Christensen, Jorgen Gronnegaard
• 署名单位: Aarhus University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/mur039
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 31-54
• 关键词: public-service motivation; incentives; management; CONTRACTS; sector; COMPENSATION; era

摘要

Public management reform has drawn inspiration from principal agent theory and private management, and a favored reform strategy has been civil service reform that strongly recommends pay-for-performance. The hypothesis tested in this paper is that the incentive effect will improve public sector management. The basis is the performance management system introduced in Danish central government where access to both performance and pay data provides us with unique behavioral data. The system combines performance contracts with executive contracts for agency heads, who in this way can earn a bonus based on agency performance. We find no support for the hypothesis and discuss the result against principal agent theory, private sector experience, and bureaucratic theory.Translations by Claudia N. Avellaneda, University of North Carolina Charlotte and Nicolai Petrovsky, University of Kentucky.