This is the first book to develop a formal theory of supply by bureaus. Niskanen develops an original and comprehensive theory of the behavior of bureaus with the institutions of representative government. He challenges the traditional view that monopoly bureaus are the best way to organize the public sector, and he suggests ways to use competitive bureaus and private firms to perform operations such as delivering mail, fighting wars, or running schools more efficiently than the present government agencies. The theory concludes that most bureaus are too large, grow too fast, use too much capital, and exploit their sponsor. His theory explains the relation of the output and budget of a bureau to demand and cost decisions. It compares bureaus with other forms of organization facing like conditions and delineates the production and investment behavior of a bureau, the behavior of nonprofit firms with no sponsor, the behavior of mixed bureaus with financing from a sponsor and from the sale of services, the effects of competition between a bureau and a competitive industry. The book also develops a simple theory of the market for public services financed through a representative government; the final section suggests a set of changes to improve the performance of our bureaucratic and political institutions, based both on theory and Niskanen's professional experience. It is essential reading for professionals and students in the social sciences and could prove instrumental in reforming some of our government institutions. William A. Niskanen, Jr., is chairman of the Cato Institute. He is a Harvard and Chicago trained economist and has served as director of economics for the Ford Motor Company. A specialist in the analysis of government expenditures and management, Niskanen has served with the RAND Corporation, the Department of Defense, and the Institute for Defense Analysis. He was recently awarded a lifetime professional service award from the University of Chicago.
Representative Bureaucracy and the American Political System
What is the relationship between the composition of the public sector workforce and the nature of the society it serves?
Economic models of bureaucracy: Survey, extensions, evidence. In Budgets and bureaucrats, ... Public x-inefficiency: Informational and institutional constraints. In Anatomy of government ... Bureaucratic failure and public expenditure.
The head of that unit, Edward J. Fagan, Jr., was told that the Department of Recreation could cover salaries but any other money would have to be generated from outside. Mr. Fagan rose to the challenge and learned the craft of ...
Those who implement policies have the discretion to shape democratic values. Public administration is not policy administered, but democracy administered.
All of Professor Niskanen's major contributions to this field have been brought together in this one volume including his pioneering article on 'The Peculiar Economics of Bureaucracy', the full text of the book 'Bureaucracy and ...
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.
A survey of democratic institutions and republics reveals the aristocratic origins of democracy.
... they have had trouble historically gaining credit approval from lending institutions (Ahrentzen 1985; Birch 1985, 1989; Conway, Ahern, and Steuernagel 1995; Gelb and Palley 1982; Shalala and McGeorge 1981; Stegman 1985; Weiss 1980).
This volume offers a set of important contributions to these debates by linking the long-standing debates about representative bureaucracy with an impressive range of country studies.