Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ministerial announcements prove difficult to implement. As a former construction
minister remarked in retrospect: 'in many cases the conclusion is that the policy is
unworkable, and after a discreet period of silence, or an abortive implementation, it
is quietly allowed to die' (Raynsford 2012).
There is also concern about more explicit corrupt activity in the public sector.
Corruption is evidenced when elected politicians and public officials take actions
for private gain by exploiting their entrusted power. Typical examples are accepting
payment for information, directly embezzling public funds and taking kickbacks in
relation to public procurement. Since the mid-1990s Transparency International,
a non-governmental organization based in Berlin, has been monitoring and
publicising bribery and corruption in the public sector across 180 countries. Its
annual corruption and bribery indices suggest that there is a high level of corrupt
activity in relation to construction projects throughout the world and we make some
comparisons in
Chapter 13
(see pages 233-7).
Even in nations that are relatively uncorrupt, the sheer scale of managing
a country from the centre is problematic. There are problems of distribution,
measurement, enforcement, and funding. These problems lead to inefficiency
and a wasteful use of resources. Indeed, the more wide reaching and detailed an
intervention becomes, the less likely it is that the benefits will justify the costs.
Consequently, there has been a tendency to believe that markets might provide
a more efficient and equitable means of allocating environmental resources,
particularly as government systems tend to become bureaucratic, inflexible and
excessively expensive to run. Furthermore, as government intervention increases,
individual liberty is reduced and the competitive spirit declines. Indeed, the idea of
less intervention by government is part of the rationale for the public sector cuts (the
so-called austerity packages) that were introduced across Europe as a response to the
financial crisis of the late 2000s.
The present trend, therefore, is to provide incentives through the market system
and wherever possible to reduce the scale of state intervention. This means that
environmental taxes and other economic instruments will probably continue to be
the key tools used to achieve environmental improvement. How far this trend should
continue is debatable, as it is not solely a question of economic efficiency but one of
politics too.
Key Points 10.4
❍
Government failure is a recently acknowledged phenomenon. It suggests
that intervention through policy initiatives does not necessarily improve
economic efficiency.
❍
Government failure is caused by a number of factors, such as poor
judgment, lack of information, inadequate incentives, the scale of the
problem and, in some instances, corruption.
