This paper provides a review of recent developments in the theory and evidence of political budget cycles. Specifically, we discuss three areas where significant progress has been made. First, new theoretical explanations (models) have been proposed where political budget cycles arise as the...

This Paper uses a large new panel data set to examine the relationship between elections and fiscal policy. We find clear evidence of political business cycles in macroeconomic policy: spending increases before elections while revenues fall, leading to a larger deficit in election years. We also...

We propose a novel market-based approach to optimum inventory control in a doubly stochastic jump-diffusion economy by modelling a commodity distributor’s inventory investment as a portfolio of forward commitments with explicit accounting of the jump-diffusion dynamics of demands, costs, and...

Using panel data from an unique survey of public primary schools in Uganda we assess the degree of leakage of public funds in education. The survey data reveal that on average, during the period 1991-95, schools received only 13% of what the central government contributed to the schools’...

The Delivering Service Indicators seek to provide a set of indices for benchmarking service delivery performance in education and health in Africa in order to track progress in and across countries over time. It seeks to enhance effective and active monitoring of service delivery systems and to...

Evidence from recent randomized field experiments on community-based monitoring reveals substantial heterogeneous treatment effects. Using data from a randomized experiment in primary health in Uganda, we tested whether social heterogeneity can explain why some communities managed to push for...

Why do donors and recipients act the way they do? In this paper I provide some partial answers by discussing some of the key incentive constraints facing donors and recipients. Some of these incentive constraints, like multiple objectives, difficulties in measuring output or outcomes, and weak...

This paper uses an unique data set on corruption containing quantitative information on estimated bribe payments of Ugandan firms. The data has two striking features; not all firms report they need to pay bribes; and, there is a considerable variation in reported graft across firms facing...

This paper analyzes the importance of strengthening the relationship of accountability between health service providers and citizens for improving access to and quality of health care. How this is to be achieved, and whether it works, however, remain open questions. The paper presents a...