Research Papers
"The Persistent Impacts of Electoral Cycles on Public Infrastructure", (with Daniel Rogger), Journal of Public Economics
What determines the quality of a nation’s infrastructure? We show that electoral incentives at the time of construction have persistent effects on the functionality of contemporary African water systems. We apply a common event-study approach to the universe of water points in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania built over the period from 1970–2014. Across all three settings, we find that infrastructure installed in the run-up to an election is significantly more likely to be functioning today than those installed shortly after elections. Our results suggest that politicians respond to electoral incentives by adjusting the provider of installed water systems. Together, the findings suggest that public officials optimally respond to responsive but myopic citizen evaluations of public performance.
"Hierarchy and Information" (with Daniel Rogger), Journal of Public Economics
Public Coverage: The Economist; VoxDev; 2018 Ibrahim Forum Report on Public Service in Africa
The information public officials use to make decisions determines how public resources are distributed and the effectiveness of public policy. This paper develops a measurement approach for assessing the accuracy of a set of fundamental bureaucratic beliefs and provides experimental evidence on the possibility of ‘evidence briefings’ sent by senior members of the hierarchy improving that accuracy. The errors of public officials are large, with over 50 percent of officials making errors that are at least 50 percent of objective benchmark data. Officials at organizations at the lowest tier of government hierarchy make errors that are a third of a standard deviation smaller than those made by officials at higher-tier organizations. The provision of evidence briefings reduces errors by a quarter of a standard deviation, implying evidence can play a substantial role in influencing the accuracy of bureaucratic beliefs relative to organizational design.
"The Returns to Higher Education and Public Employment", World Development
Public Coverage: World Bank Governance for Development Blog
This paper exploits a rapid expansion in public universities to estimate the returns to higher education in a low-income context. The estimates suggest that higher-education attainment almost doubles the probability of paid employment and almost doubles hourly wages. The returns are linked to occupational shifts to the public sector, which is characterized by attractive wages and demands for higher levels of education. The expansion leads to an increase in education attainment only in areas with a high baseline public-wage premium, suggesting that public-sector contracting policies interact with the acquisition of human capital in the economy.
"Bureaucrat Time Use and Productivity: Evidence from a Survey Experiment" (with Jozefina Kalaj and Daniel Rogger), World Development
Bureaucratic effectiveness is an important input into state capacity. The tasks public official’s choose to spend their time on determines how their human capital impacts national development. Yet empirical evidence on how to effectively measure public official’s time use, what determines their allocation decisions, and how this feeds into their productivity is scarce. We contribute on all three of these margins through a survey experiment with Ethiopian bureaucrats. We randomly test alternative measures of bureaucratic time use by varying recall period, enumeration methodology and the degree of task detail in recall surveys. Benchmark- ing these modes to time use diaries, we identify the relative inaccuracy of requesting task detail and the survey time and data entry costs of using graphical methods. Measuring time use in the public administration precisely rests on the resolution of a tension between the relatively high level of education of public officials and the homogeneity, but varying intensity, of their tasks. We then describe the nature of time use of public officials across Ethiopia’s government, and show correlational evidence that the structure of time use matters for service delivery outcomes.
"Supervisor Bias, Gender and Organizational Efficiency"
Latest version linked here
In contrast to standard agency theory, most compensation arrangements rely on subjective evaluations by middle-tier supervisors who are not residual claimants of output. This arrangement allows for supervisor bias in performance evaluations. I provide empirical evidence of supervisor bias in performance evaluations in public organizations and estimate the associated efficiency losses. I find evidence that females receive significantly worse evaluation scores when they are evaluated by male managers (6 percentage-points) and that a 1-percentage-point increase in this bias is associated with significantly worse organizational efficiency in the form of service delivery outcomes (equivalent to a 0.1 s.d. decrease in management practices). Consistent with theory, I find that supervisor bias is linked to worse labor-task allocation.
"Does Providing Information to Civil Servants Improve Service Delivery?"
Public Coverage: 2018 Ibrahim Forum Report on Public Service in Africa
I analyse how providing local-level bureaucrats with improved access to information on local conditions can determine public-service delivery. I study the introduction of an e-governance intervention in Ethiopian bureaucracy, which provided bureaucrats with timely information on their operating environment for the first time. The intervention led to a 2.7 percentage-point increase in the primary enrolment rate or additional 167,262 children in primary school. The quality of schooling conditions declines in response, in line with a theoretical framework that captures multitasking. I find larger effects in areas where information was likely to be worse before the intervention. The programme costs around 35 USD per additional pupil enrolled, requiring low returns to education to pass any reasonable cost-benefit test.
Policy Reports
"Public-Sector Productivity (Part One): Why Is It Important and How Can We Measure It?" Linked here
"Moving Further on Civil Service Reforms in Ethiopia" Linked here
"Liberia Forestry Development Authority : An Institutional Capacity Assessment" Linked here
"Selecting the right staff and keeping them motivated for a high-performing public administration in Romania" Linked here
"Changing Mindsets to Realise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" Linked here
"Governance of the Service Delivery Chain for Youth Mental Health in Lithuania"
"The Persistent Impacts of Electoral Cycles on Public Infrastructure", (with Daniel Rogger), Journal of Public Economics
What determines the quality of a nation’s infrastructure? We show that electoral incentives at the time of construction have persistent effects on the functionality of contemporary African water systems. We apply a common event-study approach to the universe of water points in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania built over the period from 1970–2014. Across all three settings, we find that infrastructure installed in the run-up to an election is significantly more likely to be functioning today than those installed shortly after elections. Our results suggest that politicians respond to electoral incentives by adjusting the provider of installed water systems. Together, the findings suggest that public officials optimally respond to responsive but myopic citizen evaluations of public performance.
"Hierarchy and Information" (with Daniel Rogger), Journal of Public Economics
Public Coverage: The Economist; VoxDev; 2018 Ibrahim Forum Report on Public Service in Africa
The information public officials use to make decisions determines how public resources are distributed and the effectiveness of public policy. This paper develops a measurement approach for assessing the accuracy of a set of fundamental bureaucratic beliefs and provides experimental evidence on the possibility of ‘evidence briefings’ sent by senior members of the hierarchy improving that accuracy. The errors of public officials are large, with over 50 percent of officials making errors that are at least 50 percent of objective benchmark data. Officials at organizations at the lowest tier of government hierarchy make errors that are a third of a standard deviation smaller than those made by officials at higher-tier organizations. The provision of evidence briefings reduces errors by a quarter of a standard deviation, implying evidence can play a substantial role in influencing the accuracy of bureaucratic beliefs relative to organizational design.
"The Returns to Higher Education and Public Employment", World Development
Public Coverage: World Bank Governance for Development Blog
This paper exploits a rapid expansion in public universities to estimate the returns to higher education in a low-income context. The estimates suggest that higher-education attainment almost doubles the probability of paid employment and almost doubles hourly wages. The returns are linked to occupational shifts to the public sector, which is characterized by attractive wages and demands for higher levels of education. The expansion leads to an increase in education attainment only in areas with a high baseline public-wage premium, suggesting that public-sector contracting policies interact with the acquisition of human capital in the economy.
"Bureaucrat Time Use and Productivity: Evidence from a Survey Experiment" (with Jozefina Kalaj and Daniel Rogger), World Development
Bureaucratic effectiveness is an important input into state capacity. The tasks public official’s choose to spend their time on determines how their human capital impacts national development. Yet empirical evidence on how to effectively measure public official’s time use, what determines their allocation decisions, and how this feeds into their productivity is scarce. We contribute on all three of these margins through a survey experiment with Ethiopian bureaucrats. We randomly test alternative measures of bureaucratic time use by varying recall period, enumeration methodology and the degree of task detail in recall surveys. Benchmark- ing these modes to time use diaries, we identify the relative inaccuracy of requesting task detail and the survey time and data entry costs of using graphical methods. Measuring time use in the public administration precisely rests on the resolution of a tension between the relatively high level of education of public officials and the homogeneity, but varying intensity, of their tasks. We then describe the nature of time use of public officials across Ethiopia’s government, and show correlational evidence that the structure of time use matters for service delivery outcomes.
"Supervisor Bias, Gender and Organizational Efficiency"
Latest version linked here
In contrast to standard agency theory, most compensation arrangements rely on subjective evaluations by middle-tier supervisors who are not residual claimants of output. This arrangement allows for supervisor bias in performance evaluations. I provide empirical evidence of supervisor bias in performance evaluations in public organizations and estimate the associated efficiency losses. I find evidence that females receive significantly worse evaluation scores when they are evaluated by male managers (6 percentage-points) and that a 1-percentage-point increase in this bias is associated with significantly worse organizational efficiency in the form of service delivery outcomes (equivalent to a 0.1 s.d. decrease in management practices). Consistent with theory, I find that supervisor bias is linked to worse labor-task allocation.
"Does Providing Information to Civil Servants Improve Service Delivery?"
Public Coverage: 2018 Ibrahim Forum Report on Public Service in Africa
I analyse how providing local-level bureaucrats with improved access to information on local conditions can determine public-service delivery. I study the introduction of an e-governance intervention in Ethiopian bureaucracy, which provided bureaucrats with timely information on their operating environment for the first time. The intervention led to a 2.7 percentage-point increase in the primary enrolment rate or additional 167,262 children in primary school. The quality of schooling conditions declines in response, in line with a theoretical framework that captures multitasking. I find larger effects in areas where information was likely to be worse before the intervention. The programme costs around 35 USD per additional pupil enrolled, requiring low returns to education to pass any reasonable cost-benefit test.
Policy Reports
"Public-Sector Productivity (Part One): Why Is It Important and How Can We Measure It?" Linked here
"Moving Further on Civil Service Reforms in Ethiopia" Linked here
"Liberia Forestry Development Authority : An Institutional Capacity Assessment" Linked here
"Selecting the right staff and keeping them motivated for a high-performing public administration in Romania" Linked here
"Changing Mindsets to Realise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" Linked here
"Governance of the Service Delivery Chain for Youth Mental Health in Lithuania"
