Who should review public spending?

Journal title ECONOMIA PUBBLICA
Author/s Maria Flavia Ambrosanio, Paolo Balduzzi, Massimo Bordignon
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1 Language English
Pages 19 P. 109-127 File size 176 KB
DOI 10.3280/EP2015-001005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Since the early ‘80s of the last century, Italy has experienced different waves of spending reviews. The ideal aim of these processes is (at least) twofold: efficiency, namely to reach public goals at a lower cost, and effectiveness, that is, to clearly state priorities of public activity. Has any of the different reviews in Italy ever been successful? Even taking into account the most recent experience, it would be hard to reply affirmatively. So what are the sources of this long series of failures? And why international experience, on the contrary, seems to reach its goals? To answer, we review international experience, scientific literature, and provide a detailed story of the different attempts of spending reviews in Italy. Our conclusions are that lack of political will and lack of economic competence among Italian bureaucracy are the most likely causes: and that the appointment of external technocrats is not the solution, particularly under illdefined mandates.

Keywords: Spending review, political rents, bureaucracy, public spending, Italy, technocracy, efficiency.

Jel codes: H5, H6

  1. Visser B., Swank O. (2007). On Committees of Experts. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122: 337-372. DOI: 10.1162/qjec.122.1.33
  2. Ottaviani M., Sørensen P. (2001). Information Aggregation In Debate: Who Should Speak First? The Journal of Public Economics, 81: 393-421. DOI: 10.1016/s0047-2727(00)00119-5
  3. OECD (2013). Spending reviews, 3rd annual meeting of OECD Senior budget officials, OECD Conference centre, Paris, 3-4 June 2013.
  4. OECD (2012). International Budget Practices and Procedures Survey.
  5. Lim C.S.H. (2013). Preferences and Incentives of Appointed and Elected Public Officials: Evidence from State Trial Court Judges. American Economic Review, 103: 1360-1397. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.4.1360
  6. Li H., Rosen S., Suen W. (2001). Conflicts And Common Interests In Committees, American Economic Review, 91: 1478-1497. DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.5.1478
  7. Iayczower M., Lewis G., Shum M. (2013). To Elect or to Appoint? Bias, Information, And Responsiveness of Bureaucrats And Politicians. Journal of Public Economics, 97: 230-244. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.08.007
  8. Hart O., Moore J.H. (2005). On the Design of Hierarchies: Coordination versus Specialization. Journal of Political Economy, 113: 675-702. DOI: 10.1086/431794
  9. European Commission (2014). Public Spending Reviews. Design, Conduct, Implementation. European Economy/Economic Papers No. 301
  10. Doraszelski U., Gerardi D., Squintani F. (2003). Communication And Voting With Doublesided Information. Contributions to Theoretical Economics, 3: 1-39. DOI: 10.2202/1534-5971.1084
  11. Dekel E., Piccione M. (2000). Sequential Voting Procedures in Symmetric Binary Elections. The Journal of Political Economy, 108: 34-55. DOI: 10.1086/262110
  12. Besley T., Ghatak M. (2005). Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents. American Economic Review, 95: 616-36. DOI: 10.1257/0002828054201413
  13. Balduzzi P., Graziano C., Luporini A. (2014). Voting in Small Committees. Journal of Economics, 111: 69-95. DOI: 10.1007/s00712-012-0321-5
  14. Balduzzi P., Graziano C., Luporini A. (2011). Voting in Corporate Boards With Heterogeneous Preferences. CesIfo Working Paper No. 3332.
  15. Austen-Smith D., Feddersen T. (2006). Deliberation, Preference Uncertainty, And Voting Rules. American Political Science Review, 100: 209-218. DOI: 10.1017/s0003055406062113
  16. Austen-Smith D., Banks J.S. (1996). Information Aggregation, Rationality, And The Condorcet Jury Theorem. American Political Science Review, 90: 34-45. DOI: 10.2307/2082796
  17. Alesina A., Tabellini G. (2008). Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part II: Multiple Policy Tasks. Journal of Public Economics, 92: 426-447. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.06.004
  18. Alesina A., Tabellini G. (2007). Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task. American Economic Review, 97: 169-179. DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.1.169

Maria Flavia Ambrosanio, Paolo Balduzzi, Massimo Bordignon, Who should review public spending? in "ECONOMIA PUBBLICA " 1/2015, pp 109-127, DOI: 10.3280/EP2015-001005