Parkinson's law
Topic: Schools of Economic Thought and Economic Laws · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Parkinson's law was stated by C. Northcote Parkinson in 1955. It says that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion." He also applied it to government offices: staff numbers and paperwork tend to grow whatever the actual workload. Officials create work for one another, so the office keeps growing. The law is used to argue for leaner administration and simpler procedures.
Example
A clerk given a week to process ten files will usually take the whole week, even if the work needs only two days. India's slogan of "minimum government, maximum governance" is a direct answer to this tendency.
Don't confuse with
- Wagner's law: this says that public spending grows faster than national income as a country develops, because people demand more public services. Parkinson's law is about bureaucracy growing whether or not there is any real need.
Related concepts
- Baumol's cost disease
- Jevons paradox
- Goodhart's law
- Campbell's law
- Broken window fallacy
- Lump of labour fallacy