Woerdman, Edwin --- "Administrative Law and Economics" [2005] ELECD 138; in Backhaus, G. Jürgen (ed), "The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics, Second Edition" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics, Second Edition

Editor(s): Backhaus, G. Jürgen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420321

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: Administrative Law and Economics

Author(s): Woerdman, Edwin

Number of pages: 7

Extract:

14 Administrative law and economics
Jean-Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano


The domain of administrative law and economics
The use of economics to understand administrative law may not be as wide-
spread as in other areas of legal doctrine and practice. Public behaviours are
none the less unambiguously susceptible to economic investigation. The ob-
jective here is to provide some general guidance as to how political economy
can be used to understand the legal dimension of the state. In this respect, the
domain of administrative law and economics consists of two related ap-
proaches.
The first one deals with both the efficiency and the control of administra-
tion, in a given constitutional framework. Two levels of objectives can be set
therein. On the one hand, coherence of administrative behaviours and actions
must be assured with regard to the goals of the state and the protection of
private rights. The prominent feature is rent seeking. On the other hand,
internal control is necessary at the level of the administrative agencies them-
selves. Bureaucratic behaviours must be contained by proper incentive
mechanisms. This public choice perspective amounts to an evaluation of the
outcomes of the behaviour of the administration, and can be summarized by
the question: how to judge the actions of the state?
In this chapter, we shall not deal with this issue which, as is exemplified by
the growing public choice literature dedicated to it, clearly requires a distinc-
tive (notwithstanding inevitable overlap) treatment. This entry rather belongs
to the ...