Xinsheng Liu, ISTPP Assistant Director and Research Scientist, Arnold Vedlitz, Professor and ISTPP Distinguished Research Scholar, along with Institute Research Fellow James Stoutenborough, have published their research paper, “Bureaucratic Expertise, Overconfidence, and Policy Choice,” in Governance.
This study is the first to theoretically and empirically examine whether experienced bureaucrats are prone to overconfidence in estimating their domain-specific expertise, and if so, how overconfidence may affect their policy choices. Using data collected from agency officials across 50 states, this study shows that more experienced bureaucrats indeed tend to be more overconfident. It also demonstrates that overconfidence, independently of individual sociodemographic characteristics, attitudinal factors, and political orientations, enhances bureaucrats’ risk-taking policy choice.
Governance is currently ranked 2/47 in Public Administration and 5/163 in Political Science by ISI Journal Citation Reports.
Liu, Xinsheng, James Stoutenborough and Arnold Vedlitz. “Bureaucratic Expertise, Overconfidence, and Policy Choice,” Governance (2016).