Role of Public Authority: Economic Development in Twentieth-Century US

This essay examines the role of federal, state, and local government agencies in the economic development of the United States, drawing primarily from Gail Radford's "The Rise of the Public Authority: Statebuilding and Economic Development in Twentieth-Century America." The essay discusses the dichotomy between short-run and long-run governmental roles, highlighting the experimentation with new economic management methods by public officials starting in the late nineteenth century. It explores the formation of public authorities due to legal barriers, citing the Emergency Fleet Corporation and Federal Land Banks as early examples. The essay further analyzes the strategies employed by municipal officials, such as special taxing districts and revenue bonds, to fund public-sector activities, and the collaborative efforts of local and federal governments in the 1930s to establish public authority agencies. It concludes by discussing the increased use of public authorities after World War II, particularly in income-generating infrastructure projects, and notes the overall rise in the number of public authorities in the US.

Running head: POLITICAL ECONOMY
Political Economy
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1POLITICAL ECONOMY
Answer to the question:
The entire discussion is based on the book “The Rise of the Public Authority:
Statebuilding and Economic Development in Twentieth-Century America” written by
Gail Radford. This study has intended to discuss about the role of federal, state and local
government agencies in the US to develop economic condition of the country (Radford 12).
Moreover, the based on the view of Gail Radford, the study will discuss about the dichotomy
between short run and long run regarding the role of US government.
According to the author, public officials started to experiment various new methods
across the US in order to manage local economies. This practice began in the late nineteenth
century when the country’s public officials intended to meet the requirements for a newly
raised industrial as well as urban country (Radford 18). Due to legal barriers, these officials
formed public authorities. At present, these authorities have covered their operations at each
level of government. The first agency under of public authority in the US is the Emergency
Fleet Corporation. In 1916, Congress formed the Federal Land Banks to provide a credit
system on national agriculture across the country. At the federal level, this bank led an
organized model related to fiscal freedom.
In 1890s, the municipal officials started their activities through funding in
infrastructure sector in order to expand this. According to the author, users could pay for
some infrastructure produced products (Radford 50). However, the municipal officials
invested a part. Instead of public support by a large scale regarding the ownership of
municipal authorities related to revenue-generating operations, maximum state courts in the
US blocked this opportunity. This was done because direct investment was considered as an
unconstitutional expansion of to the government power. Therefore, Public officials adopted
two basic strategies where one considered the special taxing district and the other considered

2POLITICAL ECONOMY
revenue bond. These two strategies could successfully fund public-sector related activities,
municipal official in the country needed permission to adopt one of these strategies from state
legislative. This process always was considered as time consuming and laborious.
To form a template regarding public authority agencies, the local governments along
with federal governments came together in 1930s. It was assumed that these agencies would
be integral in the post-war years with sub-federal government. Congress had the authorization
to loan money to municipalities in order to construct projects (Radford 120). These projects
could generate job opportunities. However, municipalities had restrictions to borrow money
across the country. This was because these local governments had cross their debt limits. In
this study, the author discussed about the dynamic use of public authority agencies after the
Word War II. New corporations were rarely found at the federal level. These corporations
had constructed some independent organizations, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory,
which performed under private constructors. On the contrary, traditional public authorities
formed and operated income-generating infrastructure in a direct way. These infrastructures
were bridges, ports stadium and so on. The author observed that the number of public
authorities increased in the US.

3POLITICAL ECONOMY
References:
Radford, Gail. The rise of the public authority: Statebuilding and economic development in
twentieth-century America. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Bibliography:
Ellwood, J. W. (2018). Reductions in US domestic spending: how they affect state and local
governments. Routledge.
Hanson, Russell L. Governing partners: State-local relations in the United States. Routledge,
2018.
Henry, N. (2017). Public administration and public affairs. Routledge.