Working Paper: NBER ID: w10241
Authors: Alberto Alesina; Guido Tabellini
Abstract: Policies are typically chosen by politicians and bureaucrats. This paper investigates the e fficiency criteria for allocating policy tasks to elected policymakers (politicians) or non elected bureaucrats. Politicians are more efficient 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 benchmark with the case in which politicians choose when to delegate and we show that the two generally differ.
Keywords: Politics; Delegation; Bureaucracies
JEL Codes: H0; H1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Nature of the task (C99) | Efficiency of decision-maker (D79) |
| Uncertain public preferences (D81) | Politicians preferred for tasks (D72) |
| Flexibility is critical (L15) | Politicians preferred for tasks (D72) |
| Time inconsistency not an issue (D15) | Politicians can make effective decisions (D72) |
| Bureaucrats lack incentives to adapt (D73) | Hinders policy effectiveness (F68) |
| Type of policy task (E60) | Appropriateness of bureaucratic delegation (D73) |
| Tasks requiring technical competence (O30) | Bureaucrats preferred (D73) |
| Politicians retain tasks yielding political rents (D72) | Bureaucrats delegated riskier tasks (D73) |