From Weber to Kafka: Political Instability and the Overproduction of Laws

Gabriele Gratton, Luigi Guiso, Claudio Michelacci and Massimo Morelli

American Economic Review, 2021, vol. 111, issue 9, 2964-3003

Abstract: With inefficient bureaucratic institutions, the effects of laws are hard to assess and incompetent politicians may pass laws to build a reputation as skillful reformers. Since too many laws curtail bureaucratic efficiency, this mechanism can generate a steady state with Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Temporary surges in political instability heighten the incentives to overproduce laws and can shift the economy towards the Kafkaesque state. Consistent with the theory, after a surge in political instability in the early 1990s, Italy experienced a significant increase in the amount of poor-quality legislation and a decrease in bureaucratic efficiency.

JEL-codes: D72 D73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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DOI: 10.1257/aer.20190672

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