Yardstick competition among governments : accountability and policymaking when citizens look across borders / Pierre Salmon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Salmon, Pierre (Professor of economics), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political science--Economic aspects.

Political science.

Public administration--Evaluation.

Public administration.

Government competition.

Finance, Public.

Physical Description:

xi, 252 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]

Contents:

2 A characterization of political yardstick competition p. 17

2.1 Electoral agency p. 18

2.1.1 From normal agency to political agency p. 18

2.1.2 From political agency to electoral agency p. 20

2.1.3 Voters and performance: the principle p. 23

2.1.4 Ambiguities in the meaning of governmental performance p. 24

2.1.5 Conflicting views among voters p. 25

2.1.6 Incumbents and performance p. 27

2.2 Yardstick competition in electoral agency p. 28

2.2.1 Voters' comparative assessments p. 29

2.2.2 The comparisons-based support function p. 32

2.2.3 The S-shaped response of voters to comparative performance p. 34

2.2.4 Explained variable p. 36

2.2.5 Selection and incentives p. 38

3 Accountability, information, and yardstick competition p. 47

3.1 Accountability p. 47

3.1.2 Accountability and other dimensions of elections p. 49

3.1.3 Is accountability asymmetric? p. 50

3.1.4 Elites p. 51

3.1.5 Clientelism p. 53

3.1.6 Accountability and other ingredients of good governance p. 54

3.2 Information asymmetry as an obstacle to downward accountability p. 55

3.2.1 Biased information on general policy issues p. 56

3.2.2 Biased information on citizens' special interests p. 57

3.2.3 Obstacles to assessments of outcomes p. 58

3.3 Yardstick competition to the rescue of accountability p. 60

3.3.1 Tournaments and yardstick competition in their original habitat p. 60

3.3.2 Transposition p. 63

3.3.3 Mimicking versus outperforming p. 66

4 Yardstick competition and its cousins p. 77

4.1 Mobility-based competition p. 78

4.1.1 Policy-induced mobility and mobility-based competition p. 78

4.1.2 Compared strengths of the two competition mechanisms p. 80

4.1.3 The locus of interaction p. 81

4.1.4 Immobile citizens and mobility p. 82

4.1.5 Policy-making autonomy p. 83

4.1.6 The exit-voice nexus p. 84

4.1.7 Mobility-induced diversity and comparability p. 86

4.2 Policy learning p. 87

4.2.1 The pure case: comparisons by incumbents p. 87

4.2.2 On the relation between policy learning and yardstick competition p. 89

4.3 Other mechanisms p. 91

4.3.1 Peer approval and emulation p. 91

4.3.2 Out-of-jurisdiction public opinion p. 92

4.3.3 Incumbents' career concerns p. 93

4.3.4 Neo-Austrian institutional competition p. 93

5 The virtue of narrowing: the fiscal federalism setting p. 99

5.1 Yardstick competition as a systemic dimension p. 100

5.2 Yardstick competition as an empirical fact p. 102

5.2.1 Strategic spatial interaction p. 103

5.2.2 Identifying yardstick competition p. 105

5.2.3 Neighborhood p. 109

5.2.4 Other issues addressed within the internal discussion p. 112

5.3.1 Status of the empirical results p. 115

5.3.2 Beyond neighborhood p. 116

5.3.3 Empirical implications of non-linearity p. 119

5.3.4 Alternative approaches p. 120

6 The challenge of extending: the international setting p. 129

6.1 Circumstantial evidence p. 129

6.2 Obstacles p. 134

6.2.1 Ideological obstacles p. 134

6.2.2 Sociological obstacles p. 136

6.2.3 Technical obstacles p. 137

6.3 The few empirical results obtained so far p. 139

6.4 Dealing with complexity and diversity p. 141

7 Two heuristic models p. 149

7.1 First model: yardstick competition and the allocation of effort p. 150

7.1.1 The framework p. 152

7.1.2 Differential information asymmetry p. 152

7.1.3 Constitutional remedies p. 154

7.1.4 Empirical predictions p. 156

7.1.5 Yardstick competition and international political relations p. 157

7.2 Second model: the impact of comparative underperformance p. 160

7.2.1 The framework p. 160

7.2.3 A checklist of reasons for ineffectiveness p. 164

8 Vertical interactions p. 171

8.1 Horizontal yardstick competition in multilevel settings p. 171

8.1.1 Shared responsibility for outcomes p. 171

8.1.2 Split principals p. 175

8.2 Vertical competition among governments p. 178

8.2.1 Competition for what? Three approaches p. 182

8.2.2 Breton's theory of vertical competition p. 182

8.2.3 The protection of vertical competition in unitary states p. 187

8.3 The EU context p. 190

8.3.1 Vertical relationships: the centralization process p. 191

8.3.2 Horizontal yardstick competition in the EU context p. 194

9 Final comments: perverse effects, advice, and arguments p. 201

9.1 Perverse effects p. 202

9.1.1 Incompetent voters p. 202

9.1.2 Incumbents' incentives p. 205

9.2 Advice (or the absence thereof) p. 212

9.3 A methodological epilogue p. 213

9.3.1 Models p. 213

9.3.2 Mechanisms p. 216

9.3.3 Arguments p. 218.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780190499167

0190499168

OCLC:

1055568985