American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task
American Economic Review
vol. 97,
no. 1, March 2007
(pp. 169–179)
Abstract
This paper investigates the normative criteria that guide the allocation of a policy task to an elected politician versus an independent bureaucrat. The bureaucrat is preferable for technical tasks for which ability is more important than effort, or if there is great uncertainty about whether the policymaker has the required abilities. The optimal allocation of redistributive tasks is ambiguous, and depends on how the bureaucrat can be instructed. But irrespective of the normative conclusion, the politician prefers not to delegate redistributive policies. (JEL D72, D73, D82)Citation
Alesina, Alberto, and Guido Tabellini. 2007. "Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task." American Economic Review, 97 (1): 169–179. DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.1.169JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design