In an overall sense, the purpose of this study is to analyze
and interpret, from a public choice perspective, the emergence, redirection,
and growth of Social Security. To date, there has been no
attempt to explain the evolution of this program within an integrated
framework of non—market institutional change which incorporates both
the recent literature on the economics of bureaucracy with the more
traditional literature on the demand for public sector activity. As
such, this study represents an endeavor to recast and review the
historical—institutional evolution of Social Security, taking account
explicitly of a theory of bureaucracy, so that the current and future
growth as well as the proliferation of the program need not be viewed
as entirely unforeseen and with results that are often unpredictable.
Alternatively, this economic, political, and institutional case-study
of Social Security can be viewed as a preliminary test of the relative
explanation power of pure demand- and pure supply-side models of public
sector growth.
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