This paper reviews some issues relevant to the delivery of public services. Itreviews some of the debates and flags some issues that are significantworldwide, especially in Africa. It emphasises how the debate has movedalong in terms of defining the relative responsibilities of the public...

This paper proposes a simple framework to study incentives and matching in the marketfor teachers. The framework is used to investigate the consequences of introducing incentivepay for teachers when contracts have both a matching and an incentive effect. Our analysissuggests that school...

A unifying theme in the literature on organizations such as public bureaucraciesand private nonprofits is the importance of mission, as opposed to profit, as anorganizational goal. Such mission-oriented organizations are frequently staffed bymotivated agents who subscribe to the mission. This...

We analyze a simple and tractable model of occupational choice in the presence of credit marketimperfections. We examine the effect of parameters governing technology and transaction costs, andhistory, in terms of the initial wealth distribution, in determining the long-term wealth...

This paper discusses a theoretical framework to study the issues of competition and incentives without relying on the standard profit-oriented “market” model in the context of the debates about public service reform in the UK. It uses the idea that the production of public services coheres...