The economic approach to political behavior: Governors,bureaucrats, and cost commissions

Cost control commissions provide two primary types of recommendations: widespread benefits-widespread costs and widespread benefits-narrow costs. Both types of recommendations are not of the form predicted by the standard economic models of political behavior. The paper explores why governors sanction these commissions and the types of recommendations governors will accept. Legislators use the maxim of concentrate benefits-spread costs to maximize votes. Governors, however, face a lower return to concentrated benefit policies and a lower cost from concentrated cost policies. This leads a governor to favor at the margin, policies which have widespread benefit-widespread cost or widespread benefit-concentrated cost. Evidence from 5 state cost control commissions support the difference between the politicians. The cost control commissions sanctioned by governors have proposed recommendations of the widespread benefit-widespread cost and widespread benefit-concentrated cost form. Governors accepted approximately two-thirds of the widespread benefit-concentrated cost proposals, although they were more likely to accept recommendations of the widespread benefit-widespread cost nature. Recommendations which required legislative approval saw a lower likelihood of acceptance. This is consistent with the view that legislators prefer concentrated to widespread benefit recommendations. qu][The politician's] favorite strategy is to create a commission to study a problem and make recommendations that may then be used as political cover. Call it government by commission.