ABSTRACT
Economic theories of bureaucracy begin with the assumption that all the bureaucrats employed in the public sector act in the same self-interested way as citizen voters, elected politicians, interest groups, and private firms. Thus, government officials are seen as political agents who maximize their own personal goals and agendas in the name of “public interest.” The primary implication drawn from this public choice perspective is that the political process fails because the major participants are responding to perverse incentives and that, as a consequence, bureaus behave in ways that insure excessive growth in governmental spending, taxation, and regulation. Economic reasoning promises a logical deductive model of how public agencies behave with clear directions for policy analysis and simple normative recommendations for reform.
