The challenge of public administration reform is well-known: politicians often have little interest in the efficient implementation of government policy. Using new data from 439 World Bank public sector reform loans in 109 countries, we demonstrate that such reforms are significantly less likely...

Voters would be better off if they removed politicians offering low-quality government by pursuing populist policies and re-elected those who improved government quality with sustainable policies. In many political contexts, including those with free and fair elections, voters do the opposite....

Governments often pursue procyclical fiscal policies, even though they reduce voter welfare. Is this because voters actually prefer procyclical policies? The analysis in this paper exploits the first individual-level evidence from an original survey of 12,000 respondents in 8 countries across...