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Bureaucratic Reshuffling and Efficiency: Do n-Competing Bureaus Determine Inefficient Results?

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  • Elton Beqiraj

    (Dipartimento di Economia e diritto, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy)

  • Silvia Fedeli

    (Dipartimento di Economia e diritto, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy)

  • Massimiliano Tancioni

    (Dipartimento di Economia e diritto, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Governments often support their preferences for decentralised (centralised) bureaucracies on the grounds of efficiency considerations (production side). Here, we consider the demand side, i.e., whether the government perception of citizens’ demand for differentiated goods/services might increase efficiency by simply reshuffling bureaucratic production activities. We represent the budgetary process—between an incumbent governing party and n-competing bureaus producing differentiated goods/services—as a simultaneous Nash-compliance game with complete information. On these grounds, we analyse—in terms of public production, players’ rents and payoffs—the effects of increasing competition (as for the number of bureaus) in the political–bureaucratic market. Moreover, we evaluate, ceteris paribus , the effects of bureaucratic reshuffling from the point of view of society, assumed to prefer those policies that approximate social efficiency by minimising bureaucratic and political rents.

Suggested Citation

  • Elton Beqiraj & Silvia Fedeli & Massimiliano Tancioni, 2019. "Bureaucratic Reshuffling and Efficiency: Do n-Competing Bureaus Determine Inefficient Results?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(10), pages 1-12, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:7:y:2019:i:10:p:998-:d:278679
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    References listed on IDEAS

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