Public sector growth: Comparing politicians' and administrators' spending preferences

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jacobsen, DI
• 署名单位: University of Agder
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3298
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 185-204
• 关键词: gender-gap; bureaucrats; IMPACT; POLICY; committees; PARTIES; size

摘要

The notion that appointed bureaucrats act as budget maximizers still stands strong within theories attempting to explain the growth in the size of the public sector. This paper reports the results of a case study that included local authority politicians and bureaucrats in 30 Norwegian municipalities and where differences in spending preferences was empirically investigated. Counter to the original theory, bureaucrats seem to be less expansive than their political counterparts. The most expansive were found to be members of political left-wing parties, the more peripheral politicians and administrators, women, those with lower education and those working in the public sector. Nevertheless, there is some support given to a modified hypothesis that administrators have stronger preferences for 'slack' (that is, organizational slack in terms of spending more money on internal administration) than politicians. The data also strongly support the notion that within a specialized sector, both politicians and administrators have similar preferences for higher spending to their specific sector.