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Josselin, Jean-Michel; Marciano, Alain --- "Administrative law and economics" [1999] ELECD 15; in Backhaus, G. Jürgen (ed), "The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics

Editor(s): Backhaus, G. Jürgen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781858985169

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Administrative law and economics

Author(s): Josselin, Jean-Michel; Marciano, Alain

Number of pages: 6

Extract:

8 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 what can be seen in other parts of the legal doctrines and practices.
Public behaviours are nonetheless unambiguously susceptible to economic
investigation. The objective here is to provide some general guidance as to
how political economy can be used to the purpose of understanding the legal
dimension of the state. In this respect, the domain of administrative law and
economics consists of two related approaches.
The first one deals with both efficiency and control of administration, 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 features are rent seeking and corruption. On the other
hand, there is the necessity of an internal control, at the level of administra-
tive agencies themselves. Bureaucratic behaviours must be contained by proper
incentive mechanisms. This public choice perspective amounts to the follow-
ing question: how to judge the actions of the state?
The second approach considers the general constitutional framework as a
variable. The way in which the state is judged indicates what its nature is
meant or supposed to be. The specificity of administrative law can then be
asserted only if the state deserves or demonstrates some ...