Most analyses of property rights and economic development point to the negative influence of insecure property rights on private investment. Keefer and Knack focus instead on the largely unexamined effects of insecure property rights on government policy choices. They identify one significant...

We exploit new experimental and quasi-experimental data to investigate voters' intrinsic motivation to engage politically. Does having the right to vote increase engagement or, given significant incentives to free ride, do eligible voters remain rationally unengaged? Does knowledge that one's...

Theory suggests that employee trust is key to productivity in organizations, but empirical evidence documenting links between trust and constraints on performance is scarce. This paper analyzes self-collected data on public sector employees from eighteen Latin American countries and Önds that...

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...

Do targeted transparency interventions reduce corrupt behavior when corrupt actors are few and politically influential; their behavior imposes small costs on numerous individuals; and corrupt behavior is difficult to observe? Results from a study of informal audits and text messages to parents,...

Do targeted transparency interventions reduce corrupt behavior when corrupt actors are few and politically influential; their behavior imposes small costs on numerous individuals; and corrupt behavior is difficult to observe? Results from a study of informal audits and text messages to parents,...

Do targeted transparency interventions reduce corrupt behavior when corrupt actors are few and politically influential; their behavior imposes small costs on numerous individuals; and corrupt behavior is difficult to observe? Results from a study of informal audits and text messages to parents,...

This paper examines new data on public sector employees from 18 Latin American countries to shed light on the role of trust in the performance of government agencies. We developed an original survey taken during the first COVID-19 wave that includes randomized experiments with pandemic-related...

The government provision of free or subsidized bed nets to combat malaria in Benin allows us to identify new channels through which mass media affect public policy outcomes. Prior research has concluded that governments provide greater private benefits to better-informed individuals. We show,...

Theory suggests that employee trust is key to productivity in organizations, but empirical evidence documenting links between trust and constraints on performance is scarce. This paper analyzes self-collected data on public sector employees from eighteen Latin American countries and finds that...