Do Incentives and Organizational Innovations Affect the Performance of Public Administrations? Lessons from the Italian NRRP

Antonio Accetturo, Audinga Baltrunaite, Elena Lazzaro and Anna Laura Mancini

No 21596, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We examine how incentives and organizational innovations affect the performance of public administrations in the provision of infrastructure, a core public good. We study Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), which combines an unprecedented investment program with a distinctive governance model for the delivery of projects, based on performance-based conditionality, simplified procedures, contracting authorities' qualification, and economic incentives to accelerate the awarding and the start of the projects. Exploiting variation within and across municipalities we find that the NRRP significantly improved procurement awarding. In particular, the performance-oriented approach played a central role in boosting administrative performance and was further enhanced by the qualification of procuring authorities. In the execution phase, the higher initial liquidity contributed to the rapid start of construction works. We do not detect appreciable effects on the subsequent progress, likely reflecting the lack of adequate performance incentives for private counterparts in the Plan's design.

JEL-codes: D73 H57 H83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06
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Working Paper: Do incentives and organizational innovations affect the performance of public administrations? Lessons from the Italian NRRP (2026)
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