Abstract
The public authority has long been a controversial form of special purpose government. Supporters promote them as examples of businesslike management. Critics claim that they are simply borrowing machines. This article has two related purposes, addressed in separate sections. The first section reviews the extent to which the concept of the public authority, as it appears in traditional public administration literature, contributes to our understanding of why this type of government unit has proliferated across the United States. The review concludes that no firm consensus exists concerning what public authorities are, much less why they are so popular among state and local government officials. A second section of the article uses a simple empirical analysis to explore determinants of the use of public authorities and concludes that money-raising ability, rather than business-like management, accounts for most of their popularity.
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