“[E]mpirical evidence about the inefficiency and motives of the public sector is minimal.”

The quotation above comes from page 16 of a public finance textbook by Robin Boadway and Anwar Shah (Fiscal Federalism: Principles and Practice of Multiorder Governance, Cambridge UP 2009). Is that right? Let me throw out just one counterexample: Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa.

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Green Auto Corporate Welfare: The Next Solyndras?

ABC News has done a carefully researched investigative report on the Department of Energy’s billions of dollars in awards to electric car programs that remain years away from profitability. They lead with a headline intended to appeal to the economic nationalism of the mass public — “Car Company Gets Loan, Builds Cars in Finland” — [...]

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Rate of Return on Bank Lobbying

This working paper is already getting substantial attention, and it’s not hard to see why. They find that banks that lobbied more in the years leading up to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of 2008 received more money through TARP. What’s particularly astounding is the rate of return, which they estimate at between $485 [...]

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