Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness

Michael Best, Jonas Hjort and David Szakonyi

No 23350, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Bureaucrats implement policy. How important are they for a state’s productivity? And do the tradeoffs between policies depend on their effectiveness? Using data on 16 million public purchases in Russia, we show that 39 percent of the variation in prices paid for narrowly defined items is due to the individual bureaucrats and organizations who manage procurement. Low-price buyers also display higher spending quality. Theory suggests that such differences in effectiveness can be pivotal for policy design. To illustrate, we show that a common one—bid preferences for domestic suppliers—substantially improves procurement performance, but only when implemented by ineffective bureaucrats.

JEL-codes: H11 O2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis
Note: DEV PE POL PR
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

Published as Michael Carlos Best & Jonas Hjort & David Szakonyi, 2023. "Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness," American Economic Review, vol 113(8), pages 2121-2167.

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Journal Article: Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness (2023)
Working Paper: Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness (2017)
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