BUREAUCRATIC TENURE AND ECONOMIC-PERFORMANCE IN CENTRALLY PLANNED ECONOMIES

Murrell and Olson (1991) set forth the hypothesis that in centrally pl anned economies economic interests over time become fragmented as bure aus become more autonomous and form into narrowly-based distributional coalitions. As a consequence, the national leader's encompassing inte rest in economic growth becomes compromised and growth begins to slow. This paper provides the first direct test of the hypothesis that grow ing bureaucratic autonomy results in declining economic growth in cent rally planned economies.