Econ 309 Government Failure
Lecture Notes on Bureaucracy
For interest:
Exhibit A of government failure: European agricultural subsides. (New York Times, Dec. 30, 2009)
Exhibit B of government failure: Senator Bunning and Judicial Holds (Ezra Klein, Washington Post, Dec. 28, 2009)
Dilbert: Dogbert as CEO, "We'll build a factory in every state!"
Nobel Prize winner Roger Myerson reflects on our troubles with setting up a government in Iraq...and thinks that maybe some corruption isn't the worst thing. (Myerson did most of his research while a professor at Northwestern. This piece is insanely interesting.)
Why can't the US government cut out wasteful, improper payments? (Slate, Nov. 18, 2009)
Uwe Reinhardt on making healthcare policy...it's like dealing with tribes in Afghanistan!
Let's bribe seniors...with $250 each! (New York Times, Oct. 27, 2009)
How Congressman Jack Murtha and many of his peers work the system. (Center for Public Integrity, Sept. 8, 2009)
Friedrich A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (in comic book form)
Government Failure Versus Market Failure: Microeconomic Policy Research and Government Performance, by Clifford Winston, AEI-Brookings, 2006. (The entire book!)
A classic example of regulator capture: Mattel Toys
"History Matters: If you paid a $4 poll tax in 1910, your great-grandchild gets a polio vaccine today"
A typically brilliant paper by Avinash Dixit, "Democracy, Autocracy, and Bureaucracy" (2009)
For amusement: