Bureaucratic Failure And Public Expenditure

Bureaucratic Failure and Public Expenditure was written to address the question: Once a law is passed, under what conditions will the bureaucracy fail to give the political leaders exactly what they ordered? The book deals explicitly with the federal government of the United States. Certain aspects of the theory could be applied to other large organizations or to other governments and times, but these are separate task. The book is organized into three parts. Part I is based on a literature survey that roams widely through economics, political science, sociology, public administration, and various related bodies of knowledge. Although much of this was unfamiliar terrain for an economist, the route was defined by the objective of identifying the conditions predisposing to failure. Part II contains 11 brief case studies that are based on reports by the United States General Accounting Office. Relying on this source permitted coverage of a broad selection of the nonmilitary activities of the government. Part III reexamines the hypotheses developed from the literature in the light of the cases and other studies of implementation. The final chapter consists of the author’s reflections on the implications of bureaucratic failure.

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.

"Originally these essays were developed as papers given at the ... Workshop on Non-market Bureaucracy held at V.P.I.'s Center for the Study of Public Choice during the academic year 1972-73."

This book, by A. Premchand, a former Assistant Director of IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department, provides a comprehensive discussion of the expenditure process in public authorities from a management perspective. It covers the various aspects, ranging from budget formulation to the courteous delivery of services to the public. In each, it considers the critical issues faced in industrial and developing countries and formerly centrally planned economies and discusses the efforts necessary to assure the public about the adequacy of public expenditure management machinery.

Comparing Public Bureaucracies: Problems of Theory and Method is based on the Coleman B. Ransone, Jr. Lectures delivered by the author in 1986 at The University of Alabama.

The authors explore the many ways that gender and communication intersect and affect each other. Every chapter encourages a consideration of how gender attitudes and practices, past and current, influence personal notions of what it means not only to be female and male, but feminine and masculine. The second edition of this student friendly and accessible text is filled with contemporary examples, activities, and exercises to help students put theoretical concepts into practice.

A global wave of reform is fundamentally reshaping the role of the state in national economies. This book provides a fresh and accessible perspective on the political economy of this megatrend. It traces the theoretical roots of the reforms to developments in public economics which emphasize problems of government rather than market failure. It then breaks new ground in developing an economic theory of leadership to explain how policy leadership networks can strive to influence the direction of reform processes.

Thirteen scholars reexamine one of the most provocative and debated models of bureaucratic behavior, as developed by William A. Niskanen in his seminal book, Bureaucracy and Representative Government. The essays evaluate a wide array of findings, both qualitative and quantitative, relevant to the various aspects of the model, and offer conclusions about its merits and limits, suggesting alternative explanations of bureaucratic behavior. Niskanen provides his own reassessment and reflections on the debate.