Showing 1 - 10 of 27
Many government social insurance policies have low take-up. To understand whether this is due to administrative barriers, information, or low valuation of the insurance, we study an unusual policy experiment in Thailand that offered a very large lump-sum incentive for informal workers in...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10015145047
We study how the organization of the state evolves over the process of development of a nation, using a new dataset on the internal organization of the U.S. federal bureaucracy over 1817-1905. First, we show a series of facts, describing how the size of the state, its presence across the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014337824
Using a large, unique dataset on the Chinese housing market, we propose to measure corruption using the price differences paid by bureaucrat buyers and non-bureaucrat buyers in the housing market. We find that the housing price paid by bureaucrat buyers is on average 1.05 percentage points lower...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012458349
Growing concerns about low awareness and take-up rates for government support programs like college financial aid have spurred calls to simplify the application process and enhance visibility. This project examines the effects of two experimental treatments designed to test of the importance of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012463289
Inefficiencies in the bureaucratic organization of the state are often viewed as important factors in retarding economic development. Why certain societies choose or end up with such inefficient organizations has received very little attention, however. In this paper, we present a simple theory...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012465912
Bureaucratic quality in terms of the level of corruption varies widely across countries, and is in general slow to evolve relative to the speed with which many economic polices can be implemented such as the imposition of capital controls. In this paper, we study the possibility that quality of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012470984
Recent work in the sociology of economic development has emphasized the establishment of a professional government bureaucracy in place of political appointees as an important component of the institutional environment in which private enterprise can flourish. I focus on the role that internal...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012473683
Recent work in the sociology of economic development has emphasized the establishment of a professional bureaucracy in place of political appointees as an important component of the institutional environment in which private enterprise can flourish. I hypothesize that establishment of such a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012473926
The current paper presents a method of deciding the question of whether any given stage in the budget process is an example of the "political" or the "bureaucratic" model. We then use it to study local government spending on education. The basis for our method is the important difference between...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012478928
We design a field experiment to study how the allocation of authority between frontline procurement officers and their monitors affects performance both directly and through the response to incentives. In collaboration with the government of Punjab, Pakistan, we shift authority from monitors to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012479257