This paper uses a simple model to analyze the forces that determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy that maximizes a social welfare function U(s, Y) that depends on...

This paper pursues several objectives. First, it presents a sketch of a positive (or real-world) theory of public sector intervention. Second, it analyzes in some detail the activity of the public sector in nine market economies of developing Asia and relates this activity to the growth of the...

This paper argues that the development of human capital in the public sector should be an important ingredient in any proposed set of “second-generation” reforms for Africa. In the post-colonial era the quality of governance has seriously declined, and the stock of human capital in the...