This analysis reflects the presumption that the principal-agent relationship is central to an understanding of government spending. Our model's structure is adapted from Jack Hirshleifer's (1970) use of the state-preference theory of decision-making under uncertainty to delimit the information...

This article surveys the empirical literature on voter turnout in an attempt to determine whether the claim that individual behavior in public-regarding decisions conforms to the mini-max-regret rule (precautionary principle) is valid, and also to determine whether or not what we know about...

This essay shows how to align governance mechanisms to achieve public purposes more effectively. First, it explains the alternative governance arrangements employed by public agencies, which boil down to four elementary mechanism designs. Two of the mechanisms (outlay budgets and fixed-price...

Douglas and Wildavsky argue that environmental activism is rooted in an egalitarian cultural bias. Others, like Paehlke, counter that environmental commitments and concerns are autonomous from redistributive concerns. Students of the "New Politics" agree that environmentalism is autonomous from...

This article explains why previous empirical tests of the size principle have failed to produce conclusive results. Particular stress is given to formalizing certain aspects of the legislative process that cause minimum-winning coalitions to comprehend very large majorities; the implications of...

Learning is the only sure way to achieve ongoing performance improvement. Budgeting and learning are fundamentally orthogonal processes. Budgeting stabilizes, which is a good thing in itself, and promotes economy, but it discourages understanding of variation. Learning requires perturbation and...

A good tax system must raise sufficient revenue – and do so fairly, efficiently, transparently, and coherently. How do the tax systems of the states stack up in terms of fairness, adequacy, and neutrality? To answer this question, we assess each state’s relative performance in terms of...

In this essay, we review the contributions economists, political scientists, and business scientists have made to an understanding of how local school districts, boards of education, school superintendents, and district offices affect student learning and other achievement outcomes of interest,...

This article shows how to design and organize the delivery of public services to promote the kinds of co-productive behavior needed to make public efforts effective. Second, it specifies human-resource management practices that foster an inclination on the part of public employees to encourage...

The efficacy of alternative institutional arrangements depends upon the information costs that obtain under each. The information revolution has dramatically transformed information costs and, therefore, the optimal placement of the boundary between government, non-governmental organizations,...