|
Budget-maximizing Model
The budget-maximizing model is a stream of public choice theory and rational choice analysis in public administration inaugurated by William Niskanen. Niskanen first presented the idea in 1968, and later developed it into a book published in 1971.William A. Niskanen, 9711994. ''Bureaucracy and Public Economics'', Elgar. Expanded ed. Description and reviewlinks and revieexcerpts According to the budget-maximizing model, rational bureaucrats will always and everywhere seek to increase their budgets in order to increase their own power, thereby contributing strongly to state growth and potentially reducing social efficiency Efficiency is the often measurable ability to avoid making mistakes or wasting materials, energy, efforts, money, and time while performing a task. In a more general sense, it is the ability to do things well, successfully, and without waste. .... The bureau-shaping model has been developed as a response to the budget-maximizing model. Niskanen's inspirati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Choice Theory
Public choice, or public choice theory, is "the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science." Gordon Tullock, 9872008, "public choice," '' The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics''. . It includes the study of political behavior. In political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that studies self-interested agents (voters, politicians, bureaucrats) and their interactions, which can be represented in a number of ways—using (for example) standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory. It is the origin and intellectual foundation of contemporary work in political economics.Alberto Alesina, Torsten Persson, Guido Tabellini, 2006. “Reply to Blankart and Koester's Political Economics versus Public Choice Two Views of Political Economy in Competition,” Kyklos, 59(2), pp. 201–208 In popular use, "public choice" is often used as a shorthand for components of modern public choice theory that focus o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rational Choice
Rational choice modeling refers to the use of decision theory (the theory of rational choice) as a set of guidelines to help understand economic and social behavior. The theory tries to approximate, predict, or mathematically model human behavior by analyzing the behavior of a rational actor facing the same costs and benefits.Gary Browning, Abigail Halcli, Frank Webster (2000). ''Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present'', London: Sage Publications. Rational choice models are most closely associated with economics, where mathematical analysis of behavior is standard. However, they are widely used throughout the social sciences, and are commonly applied to cognitive science, criminology, political science, and sociology. Overview The basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual actors will collectively produce aggregate social behaviour. The theory also assumes that individuals have preferences out of available choice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Administration
Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the Administrative Process''. Washington D.C.: CQ Press and also to the academic discipline which studies how public policy is created and implemented. In an academic context, public administration has been described as the study of government decision-making; the analysis of policies and the various inputs that have produced them; and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies. It is also a subfield of political science where studies of policy processes and the structures, functions, and behavior of public institutions and their relationships with broader society take place. The study and application of public administration is founded on the principle that the proper functioning of an organization or institution relies on effectiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Niskanen
William Arthur Niskanen (; March 13, 1933 – October 26, 2011) was an American economist. He was one of the architects of President Ronald Reagan's economic program and contributed to public choice theory. He was also a long-time chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. Early life and education Niskanen was born and raised in Bend, Oregon. He received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1954. He pursued graduate study of economics at the University of Chicago, where his teachers included Milton Friedman and other prominent economists who were then revolutionizing economics, public policy, and law with ideas that would come to be known as the Chicago school of economics. Niskanen received his M.A. in 1955 and his doctorate in 1962, writing his dissertation on the economics of alcoholic beverage sales. Career Early career After earning his doctoral degree, Niskanen joined the RAND Corporation as a defense policy analyst in 1957, using his economic and mathem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rationality
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ability, as in a rational animal, to a psychological process, like reasoning, to mental states, such as beliefs and intentions, or to persons who possess these other forms of rationality. A thing that lacks rationality is either ''arational'', if it is outside the domain of rational evaluation, or '' irrational'', if it belongs to this domain but does not fulfill its standards. There are many discussions about the essential features shared by all forms of rationality. According to reason-responsiveness accounts, to be rational is to be responsive to reasons. For example, dark clouds are a reason for taking an umbrella, which is why it is rational for an agent to do so in response. An important rival to this approach are coherence-based ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can compose the administration of any organization of any size, although the term usually connotes someone within an institution of government. The term ''bureaucrat'' derives from "bureaucracy", which in turn derives from the French "bureaucratie" first known from the 18th century. Bureaucratic work had already been performed for many centuries. The term may also refer to managerial and directorial executives in the corporate sector. Role in society Bureaucrats play various roles in modern society, by virtue of holding administrative, functional, and managerial positions in government. They carry out the day-to-day implementation of enacted policies for central government agencies, such as postal services, education and healthcare administration, and various regulatory bodies. Types of bureaucrat Bureaucrats can be split into different categories based on the system, nationality, and time they come from. # Classical – someone w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efficiency (economics)
In microeconomics, economic efficiency, depending on the context, is usually one of the following two related concepts: * Allocative or Pareto efficiency: any changes made to assist one person would harm another. * Productive efficiency: no additional output of one good can be obtained without decreasing the output of another good, and production proceeds at the lowest possible average total cost. These definitions are not equivalent: a market or other economic system may be allocatively but not productively efficient, or productively but not allocatively efficient. There are also other definitions and measures. All characterizations of economic efficiency are encompassed by the more general engineering concept that a system is efficient or optimal when it maximizes desired outputs (such as utility) given available inputs. Standards of thought There are two main standards of thought on economic efficiency, which respectively emphasize the distortions created by ''govern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bureau-shaping Model
Bureau-shaping is a rational choice model of bureaucracy and a response to the budget-maximization model. It argues that rational officials will not want to maximize their budgets, but instead to shape their agency so as to maximize their personal utilities from their work. For instance, bureaucrats would prefer to work in small, elite agencies close to political power centres and doing interesting work, rather than to run large-budget agencies with many staff but also many risks and problems. For the same reasons, and to avoid risks, the bureau-shaping model also predicts that senior government bureaucrats will often favour either 'agencification' to other public sector bodies by having policy determination and advice separated from the implementation of the legislated practices of government (as in the UK 'Next Steps' programme, Australian Department - Agency system) or off-loading functions to contractors and privatization. In the health and social work fields, officials will f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Budgets
A government budget is a projection of the government's revenues and expenditure for a particular period, often referred to as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year. Government revenues mostly include taxes (e.g. inheritance tax, income tax, corporation tax, import taxes) while expenditures consist of government spending (e.g. healthcare, education, defense, infrastructure, social benefits). A government budget is prepared by the Central government or other political entity. In most parliamentary systems, the budget is presented to the legislature and often requires approval of the legislature. The government implements economic policy through this budget and realizes its program priorities. Once the budget is approved, the use of funds from individual chapters is in the hands of government ministries and other institutions. Revenues of the state budget consist mainly of taxes, customs duties, fees, and other revenues. State budget expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Choice Theory
Public choice, or public choice theory, is "the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science." Gordon Tullock, 9872008, "public choice," '' The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics''. . It includes the study of political behavior. In political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that studies self-interested agents (voters, politicians, bureaucrats) and their interactions, which can be represented in a number of ways—using (for example) standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory. It is the origin and intellectual foundation of contemporary work in political economics.Alberto Alesina, Torsten Persson, Guido Tabellini, 2006. “Reply to Blankart and Koester's Political Economics versus Public Choice Two Views of Political Economy in Competition,” Kyklos, 59(2), pp. 201–208 In popular use, "public choice" is often used as a shorthand for components of modern public choice theory that focus o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
