Public Efficiency and Constitutional Constraints: a Contribution Towards an Extended "Leviathan" Model

The paper analyses the relationship among public efficiency, exploitation of private individuals by the government and the role of constitutional constraints. First, it contains an exensive review of the Leviathan model based on Inman's formalization of Brennan and Buchanan theory. Secondly, an extension of such a model is proposed, in which public agents are separated into politicians and bureaucrats. In doing so, a "new" efficiency-equity trade-off arises, namely, the achievement of Pareto-efficiency through constitutional constraints is obtained, at a cost of a possible exploitation of private individuals, while the non-exploitation allocation is coupled with a possible Pareto-inefficiency