Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/89750 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 4443
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
In a country with weak institutional constraints on the executive, the real power might belong to the government bureaucracy rather than to an autocratic leader. We combine the Aghion-Tirole definition of formal and real authority with the Barro-Ferejohn model of political agency to study the relationship between the accountability of elected politicians and the extent to which their subordinate bureaucrats have real decision-making power. We show that the lower is the level of political accountability, the lower should be real authority at the bottom of the government hierarchy. Empirically, we find that in countries with lower political accountability those in political power have less authority over the public administration. On the contrary, countries with higher political accountability have bigger governments in terms of administration employment.
Subjects: 
political accountability
bureaucracy
real authority
decision-making
government employment
JEL: 
D72
D73
D83
H11
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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