Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP4252
Authors: Alberto Alesina; Guido Tabellini
Abstract: Policies are typically chosen by politicians and bureaucrats. This Paper investigates the criteria that should lead a society to allocate policy tasks to elected policymakers (politicians) or non-elected bureaucrats. Politicians are preferable for tasks that do not involve too much specific technical ability relative to effort; there is uncertainty about ex post preferences of the public and flexibility is valuable; time inconsistency is not an issue; small but powerful vested interests do not have large stakes in the policy outcome; effective decisions over policies require taking into account policy complementarities and compensating the losers. We then compare this normative benchmark with the case in which politicians choose when to delegate and we show that the two generally differ.
Keywords: bureaucracies; delegation; politics
JEL Codes: E00; H10; K00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| politicians are preferable for tasks that do not require specific technical ability and where public preferences are uncertain (D72) | improved policy efficiency (D78) |
| bureaucrats may be better suited for tasks with stable performance criteria, such as monetary policy (D73) | improved policy efficiency (D78) |
| bureaucratic delegation (D73) | improved outcomes in specific contexts, such as monetary policy (E61) |
| politicians retaining control over redistributive tasks (D72) | risks in policy-making (D78) |
| delegation of tasks to bureaucrats (D73) | improved efficiency for policies with few redistributive implications (H21) |
| politicians should retain control over policies with broad redistributive consequences (H19) | improved accountability (H83) |