Principled Agents? The Political Economy of Good Government

Name: Principled Agents? The Political Economy of Good Government
Price: 39.91 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780199283910

ISBN-10: 0199283915

ISBN-13: 9780199283910

Edition: 2007

Authors: Timothy Besley

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What is good government? Why do some governments fail ? How do you implement political accountability in practice? What incentives do you need to put in place to ensure that politicians and public servants act in the public interest and not their own? These questions and many more are addressed in Timothy Besley's intriguing Lindahl lectures. Economic analyses of government usually divide into two broad camps. One which emphasizes government as a force for public good that canregulate markets, distribute resources and generally work towards improving the lives of its citizens. The other sees government as driven by private interests, susceptible to those with the power to influence its…

Book details

Copyright year: 2007
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 10/11/2007
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 288
Size: 5.75" wide x 8.75" long x 1.00" tall
Weight: 0.792
Language: English



Preface to Paperback Edition


Preface


Acknowledgements



Competing views of government



The issues



This book



Background



The size of government



Corruption



Property rights



Trust and turnout



Economic polity making



Foundations



Good policies



The public choice critique of welfare economics



Political economy



Incentives and selection in politics



Concluding comments



The anatomy of government failure



Introduction



Three notions of government failure



Pareto inefficiency



Distributional failures



Wicksellian failures



Comparisons



An example: financing a public project



Private provision



Government provision



Sources of government failure



Ignorance



Influence



The quality of leadership



Sources of political failure



Voting



Log-rolling and legislative behavior



Dynamics



Investment linkages



Political and policy linkages



Investment and politics



Implications



Concluding comments



Political agency and accountability



Introduction



Elements of political agency models



The nature of the uncertainty



The motives for holding office



The nature of accountability



Retrospective voting



Model types



The baseline model



The environment



Equilibrium



Implications



Extensions



Polarization and competition



Information and accountability



The nature of the distortion



Within-term cycles



Multiple issues



Multiple two-period terms



Indefinite terms



Multiple agents



Discussion



Civic virtue and the quality of government



Decentralization versus centralization



Autocracy versus democracy



Accountability to whom?



Wage policies for politicians



Behavioral versus rational choice models



Concluding comments



Political agency and public finance (with Michael Smart)



Introduction



The model



Three scenarios



Pure adverse selection



Pure moral hazard



Combining moral hazard and adverse selection



Implications



Equilibrium voter welfare



Are good politicians necessarily good for voters?



Turnover of politicians



The spending cycle



Restraining government



A direct restraint on the size of government



Indirect restraints



Summary



Debt and deficits



Governments versus NGOs



Framework



Aid to the government



Comparisons



Further issues



Competence



Conclusions


Appendix



Final Comments


References


Index