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Governmental failures in evaluating programs

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Abstract

Consider a government that adopts a program, sees a noisy signal about its success, and decides whether to continue the program. Suppose further that the success of a program is greater if people think it will be continued. This paper considers outcomes when government cannot commit. We find that welfare can be higher when information is poor, that government should at times commit to continuing a program it believes had failed, and that a government which fears losing power may acquire either too much or too little information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92717, U.S.A.

    Amihai Glazer

  2. School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Refael Hassin

Authors
  1. Amihai Glazer
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  2. Refael Hassin
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Glazer, A., Hassin, R. Governmental failures in evaluating programs. Public Choice 94, 105–115 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017987821453

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017987821453

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