This report examines the quality of public policies in Latin America and the Caribbean after more than a decade of political and economic reform. A wide variety of examples and case studies are presented in an analytical framework to help explain why policies that work in certain institutional...

This article makes three contributions to the literature. First, it provides new evidence of the impact of community monitoring interventions using a unique dataset from the Citizen Visible Audit (CVA) program in Colombia. In particular, this article studies the effect of social audits on...

Since 2004 the government of Peru has implemented a process of participatory budgeting (PB), which is mandatory for every sub-national government. We analyze the link from PB to coverage and water service quality indicators. We find no statistically significant relationship between PB and our...

This paper investigates the effects of political (mis)alignment on public service delivery when mandates are shared between state and local governments. We analyze sewage treatment policies in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Relying on difference-in-differences estimations, we establish a...

The contemporary nation-state exists to perform, to provide financial assistance, public services and other benefits to its people. How well the government performs influences the economic and social well-being of citizens, the mindset that voters take into the election booth, the programs and...

Since 2004 the government of Peru has implemented a process of participatory budgeting (PB), which is mandatory for every sub-national government. We analyze the link from PB to coverage and water service quality indicators. We find no statistically significant relationship between PB and our...

The contemporary nation-state exists to perform, to provide financial assistance, public services and other benefits to its people. How well the government performs influences the economic and social well-being of citizens, the mindset that voters take into the election booth, the programs and...

This paper provides the first experimental evaluation of the participatory budgeting model showing that it increased public participation in the process of public decision making, increased local tax revenues collection, channeled larger fractions of public budgets to services stated as top...