Alex Acs
Biographic Data
| ID | 1599596 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Acs |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Acs |
| SIGNATURE | ACS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Ohio State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0615-9632 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Mapping the Political Contours of the Regulatory State: Dynamic Estimates of Agency Ideal Points
This article introduces a novel empirical method for estimating the ideological orientations of U.S. regulatory agencies across different presidential administrations. Employing a measurement model based on item response theory and analyzing data on planned regulations from the Unified Agenda and the president’s discretionary review of those regulations, as implemented by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the study provides dynami…
Influence-seeking in the Federal Bureaucracy: Do Groups Lobby or Monitor Policymakers
Influence-seeking by outside groups is widespread in the federal bureaucracy, as evidenced by public expenditure data. But less is known about the strategies that underlie these expenditures. The literature on influence-seeking points to two possibilities. Groups can lobby policymakers to persuade them to take a specific action, or groups can monitor policymakers, as in “fire alarm” oversight, and report any unwanted action to Congress and other …
The President and the Supreme Court: Going Public on Judicial Decisions from Washington to Trump
Presidential directives in a resistant bureaucracy
Presidential directives are often assumed to be checked only by external actors, like Congress and the courts. But the internal constraints facing presidents can also be substantial. I study a model where a president can induce compliance with a directive by removing some subordinate agents (the appointees) but not others (the careerists), and where the relative contribution of each agent to the directive’s success is unobservable. The model sugg…
Congress and Administrative Policymaking: Identifying Congressional Veto Power
The ability of presidents to unilaterally shape administrative policymaking challenges a foundation of congressional power: Rarely can Congress statutorily veto administrative actions over presidential opposition. Consequently, Congress has turned to other means of influence, including the appropriations and oversight processes, although questions remain about the degree to which they have been effective. To investigate, I study a spatial model o…
Policing the Administrative State
Politicians react to administrative policy making by developing systems of oversight. Existing studies largely emphasize the advantages of reactive oversight, where politicians wait for interest groups to pull a "fire alarm" on noncompliant activity. Less attention has been paid to proactive oversight, where politicians police administrators directly. To evaluate the effectiveness of "police patrol" oversight, I look to the White House, which has…
Which Statute to Implement? Strategic Timing by Regulatory Agencies
A critical though underexplored decision that regulatory agencies make is their choice of which statutes to implement as they set their regulatory agenda. In a standard positivist framework, strategic agencies should be expected to implement statutes of varying partisan origins in order to satisfy the ideological preferences of their political principals—conservative principals, for example, may prefer regulation that implements statutes passed b…
Does W hite H ouse Regulatory Review Produce a Chilling Effect and “ Oira Avoidance” in the Agencies
What effect does regulatory auditing by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs ( OIRA ) have on the production of regulations in the agencies? In particular, does targeting an agency for heavy regulatory auditing inhibit its production of regulations, a “chilling” effect? Does heavy auditing encourage it to substitute multiple small regulations in place of single large one, “ OIRA avoidance”? We present an early empirical analysis of th…
Which Statute to Implement? Strategic Timing by Regulatory Agencies
A critical though underexplored decision that regulatory agencies make is their choice of which statutes to implement as they set their regulatory agenda. In a standard positivist framework, strategic agencies should be expected to implement statutes of varying partisan origins in order to satisfy the ideological preferences of their political principals—conservative principals, for example, may prefer regulation that implements statutes passed b…
Congress and Administrative Policymaking: Identifying Congressional Veto Power
The ability of presidents to unilaterally shape administrative policymaking challenges a foundation of congressional power: Rarely can Congress statutorily veto administrative actions over presidential opposition. Consequently, Congress has turned to other means of influence, including the appropriations and oversight processes, although questions remain about the degree to which they have been effective. To investigate, I study a spatial model o…
Policing the Administrative State
Politicians react to administrative policy making by developing systems of oversight. Existing studies largely emphasize the advantages of reactive oversight, where politicians wait for interest groups to pull a "fire alarm" on noncompliant activity. Less attention has been paid to proactive oversight, where politicians police administrators directly. To evaluate the effectiveness of "police patrol" oversight, I look to the White House, which has…
Presidential directives in a resistant bureaucracy
Presidential directives are often assumed to be checked only by external actors, like Congress and the courts. But the internal constraints facing presidents can also be substantial. I study a model where a president can induce compliance with a directive by removing some subordinate agents (the appointees) but not others (the careerists), and where the relative contribution of each agent to the directive’s success is unobservable. The model sugg…
Does W hite H ouse Regulatory Review Produce a Chilling Effect and “ Oira Avoidance” in the Agencies
What effect does regulatory auditing by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs ( OIRA ) have on the production of regulations in the agencies? In particular, does targeting an agency for heavy regulatory auditing inhibit its production of regulations, a “chilling” effect? Does heavy auditing encourage it to substitute multiple small regulations in place of single large one, “ OIRA avoidance”? We present an early empirical analysis of th…
Which Statute to Implement? Strategic Timing by Regulatory Agencies
A critical though underexplored decision that regulatory agencies make is their choice of which statutes to implement as they set their regulatory agenda. In a standard positivist framework, strategic agencies should be expected to implement statutes of varying partisan origins in order to satisfy the ideological preferences of their political principals—conservative principals, for example, may prefer regulation that implements statutes passed b…
Policing the Administrative State
Politicians react to administrative policy making by developing systems of oversight. Existing studies largely emphasize the advantages of reactive oversight, where politicians wait for interest groups to pull a "fire alarm" on noncompliant activity. Less attention has been paid to proactive oversight, where politicians police administrators directly. To evaluate the effectiveness of "police patrol" oversight, I look to the White House, which has…
Congress and Administrative Policymaking: Identifying Congressional Veto Power
The ability of presidents to unilaterally shape administrative policymaking challenges a foundation of congressional power: Rarely can Congress statutorily veto administrative actions over presidential opposition. Consequently, Congress has turned to other means of influence, including the appropriations and oversight processes, although questions remain about the degree to which they have been effective. To investigate, I study a spatial model o…
The President and the Supreme Court: Going Public on Judicial Decisions from Washington to Trump
Presidential directives in a resistant bureaucracy
Presidential directives are often assumed to be checked only by external actors, like Congress and the courts. But the internal constraints facing presidents can also be substantial. I study a model where a president can induce compliance with a directive by removing some subordinate agents (the appointees) but not others (the careerists), and where the relative contribution of each agent to the directive’s success is unobservable. The model sugg…
Influence-seeking in the Federal Bureaucracy: Do Groups Lobby or Monitor Policymakers
Influence-seeking by outside groups is widespread in the federal bureaucracy, as evidenced by public expenditure data. But less is known about the strategies that underlie these expenditures. The literature on influence-seeking points to two possibilities. Groups can lobby policymakers to persuade them to take a specific action, or groups can monitor policymakers, as in “fire alarm” oversight, and report any unwanted action to Congress and other …
Mapping the Political Contours of the Regulatory State: Dynamic Estimates of Agency Ideal Points
This article introduces a novel empirical method for estimating the ideological orientations of U.S. regulatory agencies across different presidential administrations. Employing a measurement model based on item response theory and analyzing data on planned regulations from the Unified Agenda and the president’s discretionary review of those regulations, as implemented by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the study provides dynami…
Political science (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Public Administration (5 works) · Public Administration (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Legal and Constitutional Studies (4 works) · Presidential system (4 works)