Unbundling Political and Economic Rationality: a Non-Parametric Approach Tested on Spain

Abstract

The paper suggests a method to distinguish between various possible motivations (e.g. political vs economic) underlying policy implementation such as public investments. The true motivation can be revealed by modelling each policy goal, as the focus of the optimization anchoring a data envelopment analysis of the efficiency of the observed implementation. The approach is tested on Spain's land transport infrastructure policy since it is argued by many observers to be driven more by political than economic concerns. The method clearly shows that investments have generally been more consistent with a political objective (the centralization of economic power) than with an economic objective (maximizing mobility). ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published