The Death of Immortality: Births, Deaths and Metamorpheses in the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy 1933-1982

Abstract

Kaufman's research on the "immortality" of public organizations has led us to believe that the population of organizations in government is very stable. The research reported here finds Kaufman's work to have some serious flaws. With a different data base and different methodology, the findings are that there was a great deal of change in the U.S. federal government in the period of 1933 to 1983.