ABSTRACT

Rational bureaucrats have few incentives to pursue budget-maximizing strategies, as this chapter seeks to show by building on the core public choice assumptions. I assume that bureaucrats maximize self-regarding and hard-edged utilities in making official decisions. A bureau’s overall policy is set by some combination of individual decisions made by its officials, and by interactions with a sponsor body. Within broad limits, officials’ influence on bureau policy is always extensively rank-structured, with those near the top being most influential. Sponsors depend extensively on bureaus for information about their costs, benefits and outputs, although they also receive some general information from citizens.