Bureaucratic performance

Local elections have the potential to disrupt the ‘business-as-usual’ culture that often settles in bureaucracies. Evidence from village elections in Indonesia shows that changes in leadership improve information flows between citizens and the state,...

Evidence from India and Pakistan shows that harnessing district officials’ local pollution incentives reduces crop fires by up to 14.5% and deters burns by a further 13%, significantly lowering infant and child mortality.

Assigning civil servants to environments to which they are most socially proximate may actually limit their ability to effectively serve the nation