In recent years， there has been an ongoing debate in the law and politics circles over the mediocre officials and their underperformance. Finding ways to institutionally motivate public agencies and run them efficiently remains a theoretical and practical task． We call those mediocre or passive civil servants sloth servants， and accordingly that kind of public administration sloth administration. The causes for sloth lie in the lack of officials ' initiatives and systematic restraints. This article proposes some effective approaches to the promotion of initiatives. Being economically better off is one of the main career objectives of most civil servants， so economic incentives might be effective. A working competition model is suggested in this article to analyze the internal motivation mechanism． It is suggested in this paper that competition among individual civil servants should be encouraged and their bonus and benefits should correspond to their performance and diligence. A fair mechanism of performance evaluation should be established to reduce randomness and will thus win individuals ' trust． Due to various conflicts in power， roles， interests and responsibility they might encounter in their work， some public servants tend to act passively and selectively， responding only to affairs that are beneficial to themselves， while ignoring those that are not. Routine chores can be simply classified into three types: （a） work undervalued by principals; （b） technical and professional work that is difficult to be evaluated; （c） work in which responsibility， power and divisions of labor are hard to balance． Similar to other professions， it is sensible for the civil servants and the officials to pursue economic interests and social values when they provide professional services within the government. Competition and collaboration between civil servants are typically the case of the prisoner 's dilemma， in which neither party can be better off if all individuals unilaterally pursue their own interests. Just like Gresham 's Law， when one individual 's underperformance has not been detected and punished， others will follow． For public sectors， this paper puts forward two suggestions. Firstly， it is reasonable to establish a fair and effective mechanism of performance evaluation in terms of different outputs. Targets， benchmarks， and other indicators can offer criterion for auditing and assessing the performance of public agencies. Secondly， it is desirable to establish an incremental bonus mechanism. A reasonable system provides an effective way of distributing benefits and blames， as well seeking redress when it comes to malperformance. Thus a balance between individual official's performance and their evaluation can be achieved． All in all， according to the prisoner 's dilemma model， there are two reasons bringing about sloth administration: inadequate penalties and unclear incentives. A better civil-servant salary incentive system will solve the problem of sloth administration. Therefore， distinguished from the legal analysis or the political analysis， the economic analysis of sloth administration provides a new perspective for its causes and countermeasures.