This paper argues that the development of human capital in the public sector should be an important ingredient in any proposed set of quot;second-generationquot; reforms for Africa. In the post-colonial era the quality of governance has seriously declined, and the stock of human capital in the...

This paper attempts to identify the effect of fiscal decentralization on public sector efficiency (PSE). We employ data envelopment analysis on a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1970-2000 to construct two alternative PSE indicators that reflect the governmental goals of economic...

This paper investigates the political determinants of public sector efficiency using a cross-national data from 117 countries in the period of 2001 to 2010, with a two-stage DEA-Tobit method. The first-stage DEA method finds two types of efficiency frontiers, developing-country frontiers and...

We analyze the decision rules governing public employment policy, capital allocation between private and public sector, and the size of the public sector in a two-type and two-sector optimal nonlinear income-tax model with endogenous wages. The government can reduce wage inequality in the...

We define public administrations (PAs) as productive units, and analyze the recent trends in PAs' productivity applying Sylos Labini's productivity function model. At the microeconomic level, we propose a model of government action for the production of public goods. At the macroeconomic level,...

Why are coordination problems common when public sector organizations share responsibilities, and what can be done to mitigate such problems? This paper uses a multi-task principal-agent model to examine two related reasons: the incentives to coordinate resource allocation and the difficulties...

The aim of this paper is to discuss pros and cons of the current ways how the role of government in the society is analysed. In our analysis, macroeconomic aggregates provided by the satellite accounts of the public sector are used as an alternative analytical tool. This data supposedly better...

Raising the effectiveness of Italy’s public sector is more urgent than ever. It will be key to revive investment and productivity and improve access to quality public services for the most vulnerable. The quality of public goods and services is variable, weakening Italy’s resilience to...

Much of the discussion around big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc. has focused on the private sector. However, a similar evolution is also taking place in the public sector. Over the summer of 2021, we interviewed government officials, management consultants, academics, and...

Most models of bureaucracy tend to assume a principal-agent model in which elected politicians delegate policy implementation to bureaucrats. It is generally theorized that shifts from the citizens’ ideal points happen at the agent (i.e. the bureaucrat) level, but recent studies in developing...