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Why do Politicians Delegate?

Author Info

  • Alberto Alesina
  • Guido Tabellini

Abstract

Opportunistic politicians maximize the probability of reelection and rents from office holding. Can it be optimal from their point of view to delegate policy choices to independent bureaucracies? The answer is yes: politicians will delegate some policy tasks, though in general not those that would be socially optimal to delegate. In particular, politicians tend not to delegate coalition forming redistributive policies and policies that create large rents or effective campaign contributions. Instead they prefer to delegate risky policies to shift risk (and blame) on bureaucracies.

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Paper provided by UCLA Department of Economics in its series Levine's Bibliography with number 784828000000000470.

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Date of creation: 06 Oct 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cla:levrem:784828000000000470
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  1. McCubbins, Mathew D & Noll, Roger G & Weingast, Barry R, 1987. "Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 243-77, Fall.
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  13. Allan Drazen & Marcela Eslava, 2005. "Electoral Manipulation via Expenditure Composition: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 11085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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  15. Besley, Timothy J. & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2004. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 4641, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  16. Dewatripont, Mathias & Jewitt, Ian & Tirole, Jean, 1999. "The Economics of Career Concerns, Part II: Application to Missions and Accountability of Government Agencies," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 199-217, January.
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Cited by:

  1. Guillermo Ordonez, 2008. "Essays on Learning and Macroeconomics," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002250, David K. Levine.
  2. Rodney D. Ludema & Anders Olofsgård, 2006. "Delegation versus Communication in the Organization of Government," Working Papers gueconwpa~06-06-04, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
  3. Mayes, David G & Nieto, Maria J & Wall , Larry, 2007. "Multiple safety net regulators and agency problems in the EU: is Prompt Corrective Action a partial solution?," Research Discussion Papers 7/2007, Bank of Finland.
  4. Mayes, David G. & Nieto, María J. & Wall, Larry, 2008. "Multiple safety net regulators and agency problems in the EU: Is Prompt Corrective Action partly the solution?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 232-257, September.
  5. Guillermo Ordonez, 2005. "Don't Ask Why Things Went Wrong: Nested Reputation and Scapegoating Inefficiency," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000988, David K. Levine.
  6. Donato Masciandaro & Maria Nieto & Henriette Prast, 2007. "Who pays for banking supervision? Principles and practices," DNB Working Papers 141, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  7. Yuan-Hong Ho & Chiung-Ju Huang, 2013. "Presidential Election, Checks and Balances, and Allocation of Public Expenditures in Taiwan," Journal of Economics and Management, College of Business, Feng Chia University, Taiwan, vol. 9(1), pages 31-53, January.

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