A burgeoning area of social science research examines how state capabilities and bureaucratic effectiveness shape economic development. This paper studies how the management practices of civil service bureaucrats correlate to the delivery of public projects, using novel data from the Ghanaian...

Does decentralizing the allocation of public resources reduce rent-seeking and improve equity? This paper studies a governance reform in Pakistan's vast Indus Basin irrigation system. Using canal discharge measurements across all of Punjab province, the analysis finds that water theft increased...

A large literature focuses on the biases of individuals and consumers, as well as "nudges" and other policies that can address those biases. Although policy decisions are often more consequential than those of individual consumers, there is a dearth of studies on the biases of policy...

How do civil servants in district water and sanitation departments address problems of water access in rural communities in Tanzania? What are the bureaucratic procedures they follow? How do the bureaucratic procedures around formulating budgets, managing money, and interacting with communities...

Economic theory of public bureaucracies as complex organizations predicts that bureaucratic productivity can be shaped by the selection of different types of agents, beyond their incentives. This theory applies to the institutions of local government in the developing world, where nationally...

This paper investigates the consequences of granting politicians power over bureaucrats in the implementation of small-scale public infrastructure projects. While potentially bolstering the incentive for the executive to perform, increased legislative oversight may lead to distortions in the...