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Independent and competing agencies: An effective way to control government

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Author Info
Reiner Eichenberger
Mark Schelker ()

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Abstract

Controlling government is a primary focus of the politico-economic literature. Recently, various political institutions have been analyzed from this perspective, most importantly balanced budget rules, fiscal federalism, and direct democracy. However, one type of institution has been neglected so far: elected competitors to the government. Such institutional competition between the government and an independent agency can be found at the Swiss local level, where finance Commissions compete with the government. In some parts of Switzerland, local finance commissions can ex ante criticize government projects and bring alternative policy proposals onto the political agenda, which are then voted on by the citizens. Thus, they become strong competitors to the government. We econometrically investigate this institutional setting by comparing the 26 Swiss cantons. We find the power of the local finance commission to have an economically relevant, statistically significant and robust negative effect on the tax burden and on public expenditures. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-006-9073-5
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Publisher Info
Article provided by Springer in its journal Public Choice.

Volume (Year): 130 (2007)
Issue (Month): 1 (January)
Pages: 79-98
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:130:y:2007:i:1:p:79-98

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Related research
Keywords: Political economics; Political control institution; Institutional competition; Audit court;

References listed on IDEAS
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  12. repec:fth:prinin:455 is not listed on IDEAS
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  15. Lars P Feld & Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2001. "The political economy of direct legislation: direct democracy and local decision-making," Economic Policy, CEPR, CES, MSH, vol. 16(33), pages 329-367, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Lars Feld, 2001. "On Government Centralization and Budget Referendums: Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Benno Torgler & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2005. "The Determinants of Political Discussion: How Important are Audit Courts and Local Autonomy?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2005-28, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA). [Downloadable!]
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