Productivity and fiscal pressure

Abstract

Under the pressure of fiscal crises, elected officials and their constituents are demanding that productivity improvement be institutionalized in government. Pressured public administration is responding with innovations ranging across measurement and auditing, joint labor-management cooperation, incentives tied to performance, training, information resources, microcomputer applications, and new means of financing productivity investments. Potential progress is limited, however, by bureaupathologies, private sector assumptions, capital underfunding, statutory or procedural obstacles, and labor-management differences. Nevertheless, public sector productivity programs promise to benefit all interested parties.