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Civil service and the growth of government

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  • Forand, Jean Guillaume

Abstract

I study a model of elections which links the scale of government activity to civil service rules. Without tenure protections, bureaucrats' career prospects are tied to the electoral prospects of the party that hires them. To avoid wasteful partisan spending, voters only consent to minimal taxation. If bureaucrats are protected by tenure, they have no incentive to favour one party over another, and governments only produce public goods. In turn, voters consent to high taxes. However, because higher tax revenues increase the ability of governing parties to co-opt the bureaucracy through favourable compensation, large-scale government activity is accompanied by inefficiently high public-sector wages.

Suggested Citation

  • Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2019. "Civil service and the growth of government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:177:y:2019:i:c:2
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.07.004
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Gibbs, 2020. "Civil service reform, self‐selection, and bureaucratic performance," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 279-304, July.
    2. Jean Guillaume Forand & Gergely Ujhelyi, 2021. "Don’t hatch the messenger? On the desirability of restricting the political activity of bureaucrats," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(1), pages 95-139, January.
    3. A. Georges L. Romme & Harry van de Loo & Ben Dankbaar, 2022. "How to Control Civil Servants: Designing and Testing a Solution Informed by Game Theory," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, April.
    4. Morelli, Massimo & Sasso, Greg, 2020. "Bureaucrats under Populism," CEPR Discussion Papers 14499, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Simon Lodato & Christos Mavridis & Federico Vaccari, 2024. "The Unelected Hand? Bureaucratic Influence and Electoral Accountability," Papers 2402.17526, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Civil service reform; Tenure; Government size; Public goods provision;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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