Agenda control by budget maximizers in a multi-bureau setting

Robert Mackay and Carolyn Weaver

Public Choice, 1981, vol. 37, issue 3, 447-472

Abstract: While the present extension of the single issue model of agenda control has permitted the examination of a wide array of questions within a consistent overall framework and has generated new insights, some qualifications are in order. First, the analysis, like Niskanen's and Romer and Rosenthal's is strictly limited to one form of agenda control — take-it-or-leave-it offers made relative to some reversion level. Second, each of the bureaus in this extension are single activity bureaus. As a result, certain types of agenda control that might exist when there are several dimensions to each bureau's activity, such as the mix chosen for various sub-activities or the spatial distribution of the bureau's output, are ignored. See Denzau and Mackay (1980) and Mackay and Weaver (1979a, b) for analyses of these types of agenda control for the case of a single bureau. Third, as a point of reference and for expositional simplicity, the analysis for the most part was executed with a single decisive voter on all issues. As a result, certain complexities and, perhaps, additional ambiguities were avoided. Finally, in an effort to isolate and study the effects of the supply side phenomenon of agenda control, a simple, traditional model of the demand side of the collective choice process was employed. For the simplest demand side-passive supply side models this has typically proved quite adequate. As models of the collective choice process have become more complex, however, taking on more strategic features, the weaknesses of certain of the standard assumptions implicit in this demand side model become more apparent. In particular, the assumption that voters vote sincerely and non-strategically is likely to be strained by most specifications of the dynamics of the voting process since learning on the part of voters would condition expectations and, perhaps, alter choice. The inclusion of expectations formation into the model of voter behavior would certainly seem, at least at the intuitive level, to introduce an interesting additional set of constraints on agenda setters that may limit to some extent the expansionary tendencies described in this paper. In short, each of these qualifications should provide fertile ground for future research. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1981

Date: 1981
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DOI: 10.1007/BF00133745

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