Merit-based selection of bureaucrats is central to state capacity building, yet rare in developing countries. Most executives instead favor patronage -political discretion- in public employment. This paper proposes and tests an original theory to explain when executives forsake patronage for...

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...

This paper documents the effects of an intervention on knowledge sharing, in which information embedded in efficient private organizations is used to improve bureaucratic procedures of public agencies. In particular, it analyzes the impact of the Knowledge for Results (K4R) program on the...

The Grand Transition (GT) view claims that economic development is causal to institutional development, and that many institutional changes can be understood as transitions occurring at roughly the same level (zones) of development. The Primacy of Institutions (PoI) view claims that economic...