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- Bergh, Andreas, et al.
(författare)
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Municipally Owned Enterprises as Danger Zones for Corruption? : How Politicians Having Feet in Two Camps May Undermine Conditions for Accountabilit
- 2019
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Ingår i: Public Integrity. - : Routledge. - 1099-9922 .- 1558-0989. ; 21:3, s. 320-352
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The market-inspired reforms of New Public Management have been particularly pronounced in Swedish local government. Notably, municipally owned enterprises (MOEs) have rapidly grown in numbers. Principal-agent theory gives rise to the hypothesis that the massive introduction of MOEs has impacted negatively on the conditions for accountability in Swedish local government. To study this, social network analysis was employed in mapping networks for 223 MOEs in 11 strategically chosen municipalities, covering a total of 732 politicians. The analysis reveals substantial overlaps between principals (representatives of the ultimate stakeholders, citizens) and agents (the boards of the MOEs). Hence, corporatization of public services seems to imply worrisome entanglements between the politicians who are set to steer, govern, and oversee MOEs on the one hand, and the board members of MOEs on the other. The increasing numbers of MOEs may therefore have adverse effects on accountability in important and growing parts of Swedish local government.
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| 2. |
- Gustafsson, Anders, 1985-
(författare)
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Busy doing nothing : Why politicians implement inefficient policies
- 2019
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Ingår i: Constitutional Political Economy. - : Springer. - 1043-4062 .- 1572-9966. ; 30:3, s. 282-299
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A substantial body of literature suggests that politicians are blocked from implementing efficient reforms that solve substantial problems because of special interest groups or budget constraints. Despite the existing mechanisms that block potentially efficient reforms, real-world data show that a large number of new programs and policies are implemented every year in developed countries. These policies are often selective and considered to be fairly inefficient by ex post evaluation, and they tend to be small in size and scope. With this background, this paper studies the reasons why a rational politician would implement an inefficient public policy that is intended to obfuscate the difficulties in achieving reforms. The paper uses a simple competence signaling model that suggests that if an effective reform is impossible, engaging in strategic obfuscation through an inefficient program increases the probability of winning a re-election compared to doing nothing at all. This is because an inefficient reform does not lead voters to believe that the politician is incompetent, which a lack of action risks doing. Intentional inefficiency aiming to obfuscate the difficulty of efficient reforms can therefore complement the previous theories’ explanations of political failure.
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| 3. |
- Gustafsson, Anders, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Does the countryside lack cash (funding)? The impact of public bank loans on firm growth and its dependence on location
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We investigate whether public policies that aim to reduce credit constraints for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have different impacts on firms located in different types of regions. Using loan data from the state-owned Swedish bank Almi and combining coarsened exact matching with difference-in-difference regressions, we find positive but heterogeneous effects of loans on firm growth. Firms in urban regions are found to be less credit-constrained compared to firms located in other regions. However, the impact from receiving a public loan on firm growth is stronger for SMEs residing in major cities compared to firms in other regions. These results have important implications, suggesting that an evaluation of policies that are targeted to reduce credit constraints should take firm location into account.
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