MPA Master of Public Administration MCQ 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which analytical framework categorizes public policies into distributive, redistributive, regulatory, and constituent types based on their political dynamics?
- Sabatier's advocacy coalition framework
- Lowi's policy typology (Correct answer)
- Kingdon's multiple streams framework
- Ostrom's institutional analysis
Correct answer: Lowi's policy typology
Theodore Lowi's classic typology categorizes policies by who bears costs and who receives benefits, predicting the type of political conflict each generates.
Question 2: A public manager faces an ethical dilemma where following a supervisor's order would harm a vulnerable population. According to administrative ethics, the BEST course of action is to:
- Always follow the supervisor's order to maintain organizational hierarchy
- Immediately go to the media with the information
- Exhaust internal channels of dissent before considering whistleblowing (Correct answer)
- Resign immediately to avoid complicity
Correct answer: Exhaust internal channels of dissent before considering whistleblowing
Administrative ethics scholars generally advise exhausting legitimate internal dissent channels—memos of record, escalation to higher authority—before resorting to external whistleblowing.
Question 3: In public financial management, 'fund accounting' serves which primary purpose?
- Maximizing investment returns on government assets
- Segregating resources to ensure legal compliance with spending restrictions (Correct answer)
- Simplifying financial reporting for general users
- Consolidating all government activities into one account
Correct answer: Segregating resources to ensure legal compliance with spending restrictions
Fund accounting separates financial resources by purpose—general fund, capital projects fund, debt service fund—to demonstrate legal compliance with spending restrictions.
Question 4: Which theory explains why regulated industries often come to dominate and control the agencies created to oversee them?
- Principal-agent theory
- Regulatory capture theory (Correct answer)
- Public choice theory
- Stewardship theory
Correct answer: Regulatory capture theory
Regulatory capture theory, advanced by economists like Stigler and Kolko, describes how regulated interests use superior resources and information to co-opt the regulators.
Question 5: A county government is considering contracting out its solid waste collection to a private firm. Which factor would MOST strongly argue AGAINST privatization?
- The service has measurable performance standards
- The private market has multiple competing providers
- The service involves significant information asymmetry and equity concerns (Correct answer)
- The current public workforce lacks specialized technical skills
Correct answer: The service involves significant information asymmetry and equity concerns
Services with high information asymmetry (where the government cannot easily monitor quality) and equity implications are poor candidates for privatization due to accountability and fairness risks.
Question 6: Which approach to public leadership emphasizes transforming followers' values and motivations to pursue collective goals beyond self-interest?
- Transactional leadership
- Laissez-faire leadership
- Transformational leadership (Correct answer)
- Servant leadership
Correct answer: Transformational leadership
Transformational leadership, developed by Burns and later Bass, focuses on inspiring followers to transcend self-interest for organizational and public missions.
Question 7: The Hatch Act of 1939 (as amended) restricts federal employees primarily by:
- Prohibiting them from joining labor unions
- Limiting their partisan political activities while on duty (Correct answer)
- Banning them from speaking to the press without authorization
- Preventing them from accepting positions in the private sector
Correct answer: Limiting their partisan political activities while on duty
The Hatch Act limits federal employees' partisan political activity—such as running for partisan office or soliciting political contributions—to protect the civil service from political coercion.
MPA Master of Public Administration MCQ 5
Which analytical framework categorizes public policies into distributive, redistributive, regulatory, and constituent types based on their political dynamics?