IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecopol/v21y2009i2p201-231.html

How Do Policy‐Makers Actually Solve Problems? Evidence From The French Local Public Sector

Author

Listed:
  • BENOÎT LE MAUX

Abstract

This article examines how policy‐makers solve problems within local representative democracies. It will be argued that politicians cannot undertake an exhaustive search of all possible policy choices; instead, they might use an incremental strategy such as the hill‐climbing heuristic. These possibilities will be formalized using the median voter model as an analytical framework. The corresponding models will then be estimated over a set of French jurisdictions (the départements). The empirical results lend support to the hill‐climbing model, given that: (1) for social welfare and secondary school expenditures, the influence of the past is significant; (2) a pure model of incrementalism, without any exogenous variables, is not appropriate for explaining the behavior of departmental council members; and (3) the impact of the past is more significant and stronger when expenditure levels are higher.

Suggested Citation

  • Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "How Do Policy‐Makers Actually Solve Problems? Evidence From The French Local Public Sector," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 201-231, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:21:y:2009:i:2:p:201-231
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.2009.00343.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2009.00343.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2009.00343.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Barton L. Lipman, 1995. "Information Processing and Bounded Rationality: A Survey," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(1), pages 42-67, February.
    3. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-296, June.
    4. Yaari, Menahem E, 1987. "The Dual Theory of Choice under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 95-115, January.
    5. Soumaya M. Tohamy & Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Peter H. Aranson, 2006. "A New Theory Of The Budgetary Process," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 47-70, March.
    6. Grandmont, Jean-Michel, 1978. "Intermediate Preferences and the Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(2), pages 317-330, March.
    7. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    8. Werner W. Pommerehne & Bruno S. Frey, 1976. "Two Approaches To Estimating Public Expenditures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 4(4), pages 395-407, October.
    9. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    10. Turnbull, Geoffrey K & Mitias, Peter M, 1999. "The Median Voter Model across Levels of Government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 99(1-2), pages 119-138, April.
    11. MacLeod W. Bentley, 2002. "Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Heuristic Search," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-52, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefanie Vanneste & Stijn Goeminne, 2020. "The role of the past in public policy: empirical evidence of the long-term effect of past policy and politics on the local budget balance," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 75-99, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    2. Eric J. Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2009. "Is the Median Voter Decisive? Evidence of 'Ends Against the Middle' From Referenda Voting Patterns," Working papers 2009-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.
    3. Marie-Estelle Binet & Jean-Sébastien Pentecote, 2003. "Tax shape, debt and electoral opportunism at the municipal level: French empirical evidence and a model (?)," ERSA conference papers ersa03p28, European Regional Science Association.
    4. Randall Holcombe, 1989. "The median voter model in public choice theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 115-125, May.
    5. Marc Baudry & Matthieu Leprince & Cyriaque Moreau, 2002. "Préférences révélées, bien public local et électeur médian : tests sur données françaises," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 156(5), pages 125-146.
    6. Brunner, Eric J. & Ross, Stephen L., 2010. "Is the median voter decisive? Evidence from referenda voting patterns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 898-910, December.
    7. Blankart, Charles B., 1975. "Neuere Ansätze zur Erklärung des Wachstums der Staatsausgaben: Ein interpretierender Überblick," Discussion Papers, Series I 67, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    8. George Boyne, 1987. "Median voters, political systems and public policies: An empirical test," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 201-219, January.
    9. repec:isu:genstf:1996010108000012396 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Peter M. Mitias & Geoffrey K. Turnbull, 2001. "Grant Illusion, Tax Illusion, and Local Government Spending," Public Finance Review, , vol. 29(5), pages 347-368, September.
    11. Eric J. Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2007. "How Decisive Is the Decisive Voter?," Working papers 2007-28, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2008.
    12. Janet G. Stotsky, 1990. "The Effect of the Elimination of Sales Tax Deductibility on State Fiscal Decisions," Public Finance Review, , vol. 18(1), pages 25-46, January.
    13. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    14. D.P. Doessel & Abbas Valadkhani, 2002. "Public Finance and The Size of Government: A Literature Review and Econometric Results for Fiji," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 108, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    15. Feld, Lars P. & Fischer, Justina A.V. & Kirchgaessner, Gebhard, 2007. "The Effect of Direct Democratic Institutions on Income Redistribution: Evidence for Switzerland," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 689, Stockholm School of Economics.
    16. Sophie Bade, 2016. "Divergent platforms," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 80(4), pages 561-580, April.
    17. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, "undated". "The Role of Direct Democracy and Federalism in Local Power," IEW - Working Papers 209, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Dennis Mueller & Peter Murrell, 1986. "Interest groups and the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 125-145, January.
    19. Christian Thater, 2009. "Auswirkungen des demographischen Wandels auf die kommunalen Ausgaben im Freistaat Sachsen," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(05), pages 13-20, October.
    20. Doessel, Darrel & Valadkhani, Abbas, 2003. "The Demand for Current Public Expenditure in Fiji: Theory and Empirical Results," MPRA Paper 50392, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. John M. Foster & Jacob Fowles, 2016. "Easy Money: Tax Exporting and State Support for Higher Education," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(2), pages 415-440, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:21:y:2009:i:2:p:201-231. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0954-1985 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.