Politics and Administration
Michael M. Ting
Department of Political Science and SIPA
Columbia University
June 30, 2015
Abstract
This paper develops a theory of the administration and effectiveness of government programs. In the model, a bureaucrat chooses a mechanism for assigning a good to a client of uncertain quali fications. The mechanism applies a costly means test to verify the client's eligibility. A politician exercises oversight by limiting the bureaucrat's testing resources and the number of clients to be served. The model predicts the incidence of common administrative pathologies, including inecient and politicized distribution of resources, in exibility, program errors, and backlogs. When the politician favors marginally quali ed clients, per capita spending is low and high error rates are high. When the politician favors highly quali ed clients, per capita spending is higher and error rates are lower. In the latter case the bureaucrat may also use discriminatory testing, which allows the politician to \target" favored clients. Such targeted programs increase budgets and reduce backlogs, but also increase error rates.
