Bureaucracy And Public Economics

Scholars, students and teachers of public economics will welcome this volume that, by making some of the key contributions in the field more widely accessible, will provoke discussion, debate and further research.

Richardson offers a careful analysis of US federal agencies examining the interaction between executive and legislative branches of government, combining Austrian economics, Public Choice and Evolutionary methodology in his approach.

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Public administration is under increasing pressure to become more efficient, better geared to the demands and opinions of citizens, more open to contacts with transnational bureaucracies, and more responsive to the ideas of elected policy makers

Traditional public policy and welfare economics have held that market failures are common, requiring the intervention of government in order to serve and protect the public good. In Beyond Politics, William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons carefully scrutinize this traditional view through the modern theory of public choice. The authors enlighten the relationship of government and markets by emphasizing the actual rather than the ideal workings of governments and by reuniting the insights of economics with those of political science. Beyond Politics traces the anatomy of government failure and a pathology of contemporary political institutions as government has become a vehicle for private gain at public expense. In so doing, this brisk and vigorous book examines a host of public issues, including social welfare, consumer protection, and the environment. Offering a unified and powerful perspective on the market process, property rights, politics, contracts, and government bureaucracy, Beyond Politics is a lucid and comprehensive book on the foundations and institutions of a free and humane society.

The call to "reinvent government"—to reform the government bureaucracy of the United States—resonates as loudly from elected officials as from the public. Examining the political and economic forces that have shaped the American civil service system from its beginnings in 1883 through today, the authors of this volume explain why, despite attempts at an overhaul, significant change in the bureaucracy remains a formidable challenge.