The public choice of university organization. A stylized story of a constitutional reform

Martin Paldam

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: The essay presents and explains a highly stylized story of the reactions of the structure of a university to a constitutional reform – in the university law – that radically changed the power structure from a bottom-up representative system to a top-down hierarchical system practically without checks and balances. It was meant as a more business-like system to increasing effective-ness. However, the result has been precisely the reverse. Both the (relative) size and the salaries of the bureaucracy have increased, while its effectiveness has fallen. The bureaucracy has grown particularly fast in the special service bureaus outside the normal structure and in the PR-depart-ment. It is shown that these outcomes correspond to the predictions of public choice theory, notably of Niskanen’s theory of bureaucracy.

Keywords: Constitutional reform; bureaucratic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 L32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40
Date: 2014-02-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-sog
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The public choice of university organization: a stylized story of a constitutional reform (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2014-08

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