Agency theory in public administration a comparative study of the US, China, and EU Eduardo Araral

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Araral, Eduardo, Jr., author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in public and nonprofit administration

Cambridge elements. Elements in public and nonprofit administration 2515-4303

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Administrative agencies.

Comparative government.

United States.

European Union countries.

China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2026

Summary:

"This Element advances an agency-theoretic approach to public administration through comparative analysis of the United States, China, and EU. It examines how principals – such as legislatures, executives, or ruling parties – can align the actions of diverse agents, including civil servants, public agencies, street-level bureaucrats, and contractors, with the public interest. Drawing on an extensive review of 146 key studies and AI-assisted analysis of 8,400 articles from Public Administration Review, Part I outlines fundamental concepts: goal divergence, moral hazard, adverse selection, and information asymmetry and traces its history, debates, and criticisms. These concepts are then applied to key themes in public administration – performance management, federalism/decentralization, contracting, politics-administration, and institutional drift. Part II investigates how these problems manifest and tackled in the US, China, and Europe. Part III concludes with a synthesis of findings, debates, extensions, and future directions for theory and practice"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

Setting the stage

Theoretical foundations

Solutions to agency problems

Expanding the boundaries of agency theory

Agency theory in the United States

Agency theory in China

Agency theory in Germany

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed April 22, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Araral, Eduardo, Jr. Agency theory in public administration

ISBN:

9781009704212

1009704214

OCLC:

1578773072

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license