Die Determinanten der Verwaltungsausgaben der deutschen Bundesländer

Abstract

This study assesses the causes of public administration policy of sixteen German Laender (states). Public administration policy is measured in two ways: state-level expenditures for civil servants and state-level public sector operating expenditures during the period 1992 2005. With the use of pooled cross-sectional and time-series analysis the research focuses on a range of variables, including socioeconomic, institutional, international, the distribution of power resources between major interest groups, and government<br />partisanship.<br />The major findings indicate that public expenditures tend to be higher the better the economic performance and the lower the population density. Additionally, the occupational pattern of parliamentarians is of substantial importance. While a high percentage of lawyers, physicians and self-employed parliamentarians has a limiting effect on expenditures, a higher percentage of former civil servant-MPs leads to higher public sector expenditures. Also, the nature of political parties and political institutions matters. The findings suggest governments with left-wing party participation show significantly higher expenditure efforts than Christian Democratic or liberal parties.<br />Also, particular institutional characteristics of consensus democracy and a high degree of executive dominance lead systematically to lower expenditures. Finally, transfer payments neither by the state-level nor the federal-level make a difference on spending patterns for the civil service.