Background
BRETON, Albert was born in 1929 in Montmarte, Saskatchewan, Canada.
( This book provides a theory capable of explaining the p...)
This book provides a theory capable of explaining the patterns of public expenditures and taxation that occur under representative government. Economists and political scientists have come to realize that issues of public policy and public finance cannot be solved on the naive assumption that these are problems tackled by a government that exists only to serve the public good. Instead, government must be understood as one of the major economic institutions of society, one that behaves like more familiar economic institutions--the household and the firm--though the market it confronts is a market for policies rather than for goods and services. Albert Breton's pathbreaking work remains important in taking us toward a theory of representative government that enables an understanding of the observed behavior of political institutions. The author's analysis is cast in a relatively simple demand, supply and demand-supply-equilibrium framework, using the tools of marginal and stability analysis to explain the forces that influence and determine the flow of resources as they are allocated between competing ends in the public sector. The book presents a model of demand by citizens, who are assumed to be maximizing their desires for specific public policies and private goods, and a model of the supply of public policies by politicians and bureaucrats, who are assumed to be maximizing the probability of their re-election and the size of their budgets. Breton defines government policies and the institutional framework for collective choices in terms that render them amenable to further analysis. The main accomplishment of Breton's theory is that it provides the ability to analyze the interaction of individuals and generates testable propositions about the behavior of these individuals as well as about the behavior of public expenditures and taxation in more aggregative terms. In this way the book will be useful to students of economics, economists, and those interested in economic theory.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0202361578/?tag=2022091-20
(In this work the authors present a general theory of bure...)
In this work the authors present a general theory of bureaucracy and use it to explain behaviour in large organizations and to explain what determines efficiency in both governments and business corporations. The theory uses the methods of standard neoclassical economic theory. It relies on two central principles: that members of an organization trade with one another and that they compete with one another. Authority, which is the basis for conventional theories of bureaucracy, is given a role, despite reliance on the idea of trade between bureaucracies. It is argued, however, that bureaucracies cannot operate efficiently on the basis of authority alone. Exchange between bureaucrats is hampered because promises are not enforceable. So trust and loyalty between members of bureaucratic networks play an important part. The authors find that vertical networks promote efficiency while horizontal ones impede it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521245893/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D5GZRGI/?tag=2022091-20
BRETON, Albert was born in 1929 in Montmarte, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Bachelor of Arts College, de South. Boniface, 1951. Doctor of Philosophy Columbia University, 1965.
Assistant Professor, University de
Montreal, 1957-1965. Director Research, Social Research Group, Montreal, 1956-1965. Visiting Association Professor, Carleton University, Ottawa,
1964-1965.
Senior Lector, Reader, London School of Economies and Political Science, London, United Kingdom, 1966-1969.
Invited Professor, University Catholique Louvain, Belgium, 1968. Visiting Professor, Harvard University, 1969-1970.
Professor of Economics, University Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since 1970. Editorial Board, Public Finance, Finances Publiques, since 1975.
(In this work the authors present a general theory of bure...)
( This book provides a theory capable of explaining the p...)
(Federal government. Economic policy. Intergovernmental fi...)
My earlier work on nationalism produced a new theory of that phenomenon and the first model of what was later to be rediscovered as ‘the’ theory of rent-seeking. lieutenant also generated a conviction that a deeper understanding of public economics would require that more attention be given to the supply side of the government sector. My book on Representative Government stressed such an approach.
My later work with Ronald Wintrobe developed a new theory of bureaucracy that was the first to stress that these organisations are not mainly authority structures, but networks of exchange relationships based on trust. And that bureaucracies are not, in general, monopolies, but systems of competing bureaus.
From the very beginning, my interest in governmental supply had led me to the study of federalism. After developing a theory of federalism based on the properties of public goods, I was, with Anthony Scott, among the first to suggest a theory of federalism based on organisational or transaction costs.
In the 1970s, with Peter Wieszkowski, I provided the first economic theory of bilingualism as a prolegomena to an understanding of the supply of language policies by governments in Canada and virtually everywhere in the world.