Could you hand me the efficiency section, please? Newspaper circulation and local government efficiency in Norway

Bruns, Christian and Himmler, Oliver (2008): Could you hand me the efficiency section, please? Newspaper circulation and local government efficiency in Norway.

Abstract

Whenever citizens want their elected officials to employ funds efficiently, they are in need of information in order to establish accountability. We develop an agency model with imperfect monitoring where newspapers provide voters with this information. The model predicts that an informed electorate is more likely to hold an incumbent accountable. Using panel data on Norwegian municipalities we show that increases in local newspaper circulation are associated with higher levels of local government efficiency as measured by an index introduced by the Norwegian authorities.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: media, newspapers, local government, public sector efficiency, Norway
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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