This paper summarizes economic research on investment in public infrastructure and introduces the findings of several new studies on this topic. It begins with a review of several potential justifications for the public sector's involvement in building, financing, and operating infrastructure,...

Contract renegotiations allow administrations to replicate the effects of issuing debt. Yet debt issues are incorporated in the budget, must be approved by Congress and are therefore subject to the opposition's review. By contrast, under current accounting standards the obligations created by...

This paper uses a difference-in-difference framework to estimate the effects of mobile money transfer technology (MMT) on healthcare usage in the face of negative health shocks. We use survey data from 2013-16 with quarterly observations on about 1,600 households of 10 villages in the Kisumu...

This paper examines a cost-reducing innovation to the delivery of "Self-Help Group" microfinance services. These groups typically rely on outside agents to found and administer the groups although funds are raised by the group members. The innovation is to have the agents earn their payment by...

The study of autocracies and weakly institutionalized countries is plagued by scarcity of information about the relative strength of different players within the political system. This paper presents novel data on the composition of government coalitions in a sample of fifteen post-colonial...

This paper examines the structure, behavior and performance of the N95 respirator market in the U.S. before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-early 2022). It focuses on the behavior and performance of government and private sector organizations in the allocation of scarce supplies of N95...

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have emerged as a new organizational form to provide public infrastructure over the last 30 years. Governments find them attractive because PPPs can be used to avoid fiscal check-and-balances and increase spending. At the same time, PPPs can lead to important...

We present a model of public procurement in which both contractual flexibility and political tolerance for contractual deviations determine renegotiations. In the model, contractual flexibility allows for adaptation without formal renegotiation while political tolerance for deviations decreases...

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly used to provide infrastructure services. Even though PPPs have the potential to increase efficiency and improve resource allocation, contract renegotiations have been pervasive

We offer empirical information on the correlates of commercialization activity for research projects funded through the U.S. National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award program. Based on this analysis we suggest possible recommendations for improving...