Public bureau budgets and jurisdiction size: An empirical note

David Nellor

Public Choice, 1984, vol. 42, issue 2, 175-183

Abstract: This note suggests that the persuit of budget maximization by public bureaus is partially dependent on the size of the jurisdiction in which the bureau is located. The larger is the jurisdiction, the greater is the degree of rational ignorance and the more significant are moving costs, each of which contribute to bureau monopoly power. The additional monopoly power in larger jurisdictions provides the incentive for, and enables, the bureau personnel to exert greater pressure on politicians to expand bureau budgets and benefits to personnel. Our examination of police services showed these hypotheses to be consistent with the evidence. In particular, the size of budgets grew far more rapidly than did population, and the proportion of public employees proved to be a significant variable where personnel expenditures were considered. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1984

Date: 1984
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00124159 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:42:y:1984:i:2:p:175-183

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/BF00124159

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().