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Organizing public good provision: Lessons from managerial accounting

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This paper applies ideas and findings from Managerial Accounting to the problem of public good provision. It first links the problems of traditional bureaucracies with those of "discretionary expense centers", which are characterized by poor user and supplier incentives as well as overproduction. It then describes alternative hybrid organizations that delegate authority and provide incentives on some dimensions, while maintaining control on others. Finally, it illustrates the ideas with several cross-country case studies on public registries, illustrating that such hybrids may provide a superior, if imperfect, solution to the problems that governments face when lacking sufficient information to directly control the activities of public goods' providers.

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  • Benito Arruñada & Stephen Eliot Hansen, 2014. "Organizing public good provision: Lessons from managerial accounting," Economics Working Papers 1445, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1445
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    Cited by:

    1. Benito Arruñada, 2020. "The organization of public registries: A comparative analysis," Economics Working Papers 1695, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2021.
    2. Arruñada, Benito, 2017. "How should we model property? Thinking with my critics," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 815-827, December.
    3. Manuel Serrano-Alarcón, 2021. "The Organization of Public Registries: A Comparative Analysis," Working Papers 2021-13, FEDEA.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Good Provision; Managerial Accounting.;

    JEL classification:

    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • M48 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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