Principled Agents?: The Political Economy of Good Government

by Timothy Besley

What is good government? Why do some governments fail? How do you implement political accountability in practice? What incentives do you need to put in place to ensure that politicians and public servants act in the public interest and not their own? These questions and many more are addressed in Timothy Besley's intriguing Lindahl lectures. Economic analyses of government usually divide into two broad camps. One which emphasizes government as a force for public good that can regulate markets, distribute resources and generally work towards improving the lives of its citizens. The other sees government as driven by private interests, susceptible to those with the power to influence its decisions and failing to incentivize its officials to act for the greater public good. This book adopts a middle way between the two extremes, the Publius approach, which recognizes the potential for government to act for the public good but also accepts the fact that things often go wrong. It shares the view that there are certain institutional preconditions for effective government but then proceed to examine exactly what those preconditions are.; Timothy Besley emphasises that it is not just about designing an appropriate institutional framework but also about understanding the way incentives work and the process by which the political class is selected.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction

266 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Marc Sabatier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A masterful treatment of the political economy of governance. Besley presents the leading models of political agency, introducing them in an accessible way for the student of political economy. Besley further makes comments on the preceding public choice literature, which largely had a pessimistic view of government. Besley shows that the methods of political economy do not necessarily lead to this conclusion; there is great richness to the conclusions we may draw on what is the correct way of governance through formal theory. Besley treats big practical questions (term limits, fiscal governance, election incentives) with great richness, and highlights the sensitivity of the aforementioned school of though (and other political economists) to small adjustments in the assumptions. The book works as an excellent primer for how to think as a political economist, and acquiring the sense of what the big questions of the day are.

[Kevin_Raccoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

When thinking about political institutions, always take incentives together with selection in mind.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://pro-libertate.net/20120629/186...

[Will Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A seminal guidebook to the sensible Publius approach of political agency models, the crucial - and yet nascent - application of economics to effective, disciplined, and understandable government.