Noise at the street level: revealing unwanted variability in seismic safety

Simone Busetti, Maria Stella Righettini and Stefano Sbalchiero

Public Management Review, 2025, vol. 27, issue 11, 2693-2717

Abstract: Street-level bureaucrats play a crucial role in translating policy statutes into services to citizens, but their discretion can have positive and negative impacts. This article examines noise – unwanted variability in decisions regarding identical cases. We conducted an experimental test with public officials managing seismic authorizations and analysed a database of all seismic audits performed between 2015 and 2020 in one Italian region (N = 17,463). The findings reveal substantial inconsistencies in seismic classification, the decision to grant building permits, administrative burdens, and the request for building changes. These findings have implications for the analysis of discretion, bias, and implementation. The conclusions explore strategies for reducing noise.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14719037.2024.2445038 (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:taf:rpxmxx:v:27:y:2025:i:11:p:2693-2717

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rpxm20

DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2024.2445038

Access Statistics for this article

Public Management Review is currently edited by Stephen P. Osborne

More articles in Public Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().