The Influence of Individual Characteristics and Institutional Norms on Bureaucrats’ Use of Cost–Benefit Analysis: A Choice Experiment

Abstract A commonly assumed reason for the delegation of authority from a legislature (politicians) to bureaucracies is that the bureaucrats have an information advantage over the politicians, including knowledge of cost–benefit analysis (CBA). But it is reasonable to assume that the bureaucrats use their information advantage by taking all relevant aspects of policy into account? We model the use of CBA using a delegation model and then test the theoretical predictions with empirical data collected from five Swedish government agencies. The empirical results lend support both for the hypothesis that risk aversion concerning the environmental outcome, the bureaucrats’ environmental attitudes, and the cost of taking CBA information into account have a considerable impact on the probability of using information from a CBA. Hence risk averse and bureaucrats with strong environmental preferences are less likely and bureaucrats with low cost of doing a CBA more likely than other bureaucrats to use CBA information. Finally, a binding governmental budget constraint may positively influence a bureaucrat’s choice of using CBA information. A tentative conclusion is therefore that it may be possible to increase the use of CBA by making the budgetary consequences of policies much clearer and demanding due consideration of costs.