IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cje/issued/v34y2001i2p504-524.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Endogenous public sector budgeting: to centralize or not?

Author

Listed:
  • Gervan Fearon

Abstract

In this paper the impact of budget size on a government's choice to centralize or decentralize the budgetary process is investigated using asymmetric information, differing preferences, and endogenous budgetary arrangements. The central government chooses between a budgetary process that excludes the regional board (centralization) and one that includes the board (decentralization) in the determination of program budget levels. It is predicted that the central government will decentralize the budgetary process at low and centralize at high overall budget levels. Switching from decentralization to centralization is predicted to result in a reduction in the budget allocated to the regional board.

Suggested Citation

  • Gervan Fearon, 2001. "Endogenous public sector budgeting: to centralize or not?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 504-524, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:34:y:2001:i:2:p:504-524
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0008-4085%28200105%2934%3A2%3C504%3AEPSBTC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
    Download Restriction: only available to JSTOR subscribers
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lars-Erik Borge & Jørn Rattsø, 1998. "Local Government Grants and Income Tax Revenue: Redistributive Politics in Norway 1900-1990," Chapters, in: Jørn Rattsø (ed.), Fiscal Federalism and State–local Finance, chapter 13, pages 223-239, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Miller, Gary J. & Moe, Terry M., 1983. "Bureaucrats, Legislators, and the Size of Government," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(2), pages 297-322, June.
    3. Tirole, Jean, 1994. "The Internal Organization of Government," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, January.
    4. Thomas McGuire & Michael Coiner & Larry Spancake, 1979. "Budget-maximizing agencies and efficiency in government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 333-357, September.
    5. Costrell, Robert M., 1997. "Can centralized educational standards raise welfare?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 271-293, September.
    6. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922.
    7. Spulber, Daniel F & Besanko, David, 1992. "Delegation, Commitment, and the Regulatory Mandate," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 126-154, March.
    8. Lars-Erik Borge, 1996. "The Behavior of Bureaucrats and the Choice Between Single-Purpose and Multi-Purpose Authorities," Public Finance Review, , vol. 24(2), pages 173-191, April.
    9. Dickens, William T & Katz, Lawrence F & Lang, Kevin & Summers, Lawrence H, 1989. "Employee Crime and the Monitoring Puzzle," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(3), pages 331-347, July.
    10. Michael Marlow, 1988. "Fiscal decentralization and government size," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 259-269, March.
    11. Hettich, Walter & Winer, Stanley L, 1988. "Economic and Political Foundations of Tax Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 701-712, September.
    12. Eric van Damme, 1984. "The Nash Bargaining Solution is Optimal," Discussion Papers 597, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    13. Breton, Albert & Wintrobe, Ronald, 1975. "The Equilibrium Size of a Budget-maximizing Bureau: A Note on Niskanen's Theory of Bureaucracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(1), pages 195-207, February.
    14. Damme, Eric van, 1986. "The Nash bargaining solution is optimal," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 78-100, February.
    15. Baker, Michael & Payne, A. Abigail & Smart, Michael, 1999. "An empirical study of matching grants: the 'cap on CAP'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 269-288, May.
    16. Martin J. Osborne & Ariel Rubinstein, 1994. "A Course in Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650401, December.
    17. Niskanen, William A, 1975. "Bureaucrats and Politicians," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 617-643, December.
    18. Bendor, Jonathan & Moe, Terry M., 1985. "An Adaptive Model of Bureaucratic Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 755-774, September.
    19. Bose, Pinaki, 1995. "Regulatory errors, optimal fines and the level of compliance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 475-484, March.
    20. Geroski, P.A., 1988. "James Friedman, Game Theory with Applications to Economics, Oxford University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England (1986), p. 262," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 275-277.
    21. James Andreoni, 1991. "Reasonable Doubt and the Optimal Magnitude of Fines: Should the Penalty Fit the Crime?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(3), pages 385-395, Autumn.
    22. Grady, P. & Phidd, R.W., 1993. "Budget Envelops, Policy Making and Accountability," Papers 93-16, Queen's at Kingston - School of Policy Studies.
    23. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    24. Marlow, Michael L, 1991. "Privatization and Government Size," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 68(1-3), pages 273-276, January.
    25. Bendor, Jonathan & Taylor, Serge & Gaalen, Roland Van, 1985. "Bureaucratic Expertise versus Legislative Authority: A Model of Deception and Monitoring in Budgeting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1041-1060, December.
    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. Molero, Juan Carlos, 2002. "Gasto Público y Federalismo Fiscal en España. Período 1984-1998 [Public Spending and Fiscal Federalism in Spain. Period 1984-1998]," MPRA Paper 8098, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Gervan Fearon, 2009. "Economics of public good provision: auditing, outsourcing, and bribery," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3), pages 997-1022, August.

    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. Fearon, Gervan & Busch, Lutz-Alexander, 2006. "Auditing and competitive bidding in the public sector," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 657-678, May.
    2. Breton, Albert, 1995. "Organizational hierarchies and bureaucracies: An integrative essay," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 411-440, September.
    3. José Casas-Pardo & Miguel Puchades-Navarro, 2001. "A Critical Comment on Niskanen's Model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 147-167, April.
    4. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2013. "On the cost of rent-seeking by government bureaucrats in a Real-Business-Cycle framework," Working Papers 2013_20, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    5. Balaguer-Coll, Maria Teresa & Prior, Diego & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2007. "On the determinants of local government performance: A two-stage nonparametric approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 425-451, February.
    6. Rosen Valchev & Antony Davies, 2009. "Transparency, Performance, and Agency Budgets: A Rational Expectations Modeling Approach," Working Papers 2009-004, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    7. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Essays on Real Business Cycle Modeling and the Public Sector," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 130522, October.
    8. Shaheen Naseer, 2019. "Public Spending, Quality of Bureaucracy and Economic Growth: A Theoretical Analysis," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 203-221.
    9. Jin, Jing & Zou, Heng-fu, 2002. "How does fiscal decentralization affect aggregate, national, and subnational government size?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 270-293, September.
    10. George Crowley & Russell Sobel, 2011. "Does fiscal decentralization constrain Leviathan? New evidence from local property tax competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 5-30, October.
    11. Samarth Vaidya, 2004. "Bureaucratic Provision: Influencing vs. Lying," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 251, Econometric Society.
    12. Miltos Makris, 2003. "Administrative Bureaus with Standard Operating Procedures," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/062, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    13. Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2010. "On the link between fiscal decentralization and public debt in OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 351-378, December.
    14. Dieter Schmidtchen & Bernard Steunenberg, "undated". "European Policymaking: An Agency-Theoretic Analysis of the Issue," German Working Papers in Law and Economics 2002-1-1040, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    15. Walter Trockel, 1999. "Integrating the Nash Program into Mechanism Theory," UCLA Economics Working Papers 787, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Asimit, Alexandru V. & Boonen, Tim J. & Chi, Yichun & Chong, Wing Fung, 2021. "Risk sharing with multiple indemnity environments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(2), pages 587-603.
    17. Jürgen, Göbel, 2009. "How can the Power of Leviathans be Measured?," MPRA Paper 13663, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Alfred Wu & Mi Lin, 2012. "Determinants of government size: evidence from China," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 255-270, April.
    19. Miltiadis Makris, 2006. "Political authority, expertise and government bureaucracies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 267-284, June.
    20. Samarth Vaidya, 2009. "Influencing The Public And Efficiency In Bureaucratic Provision," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 259-274, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory

    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:cje:issued:v:34:y:2001:i:2:p:504-524. 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: Prof. Werner Antweiler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceaaaea.html .

    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.