Many environmental-policy problems are characterized by complexity and uncertainty. Government's choice concerning these policies commonly relies on information provided by a bureaucracy. Environmental bureaucrats often have a political motivation of their own, so they might be tempted to...

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...

Citizens confront multiple challenges when attempting to access public services. This article focuses on an aspect yet unaddressed by existing literature on administrative burdens: the complexity of the written language used by government agencies in Latin America. It presents an impact...

The retail business, in India, is estimated to grow at 13 per cent per annum from US$ 322 billion in 2006-07 to US$ 590 billion in 2011-12. The unorganized retail sector is expected to grow at about 10 per cent per annum from US$ 309 billion 2006-07 to US$ 496 billion in 2011-12. Organized...