Hierarchy and Information

Daniel Oliver Rogger and Ravi Somani

No 8644, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The information that public officials use to make decisions determines the distribution of public resources and the efficacy of public policy. This paper develops a measurement framework for assessing the accuracy of a set of fundamental bureaucratic beliefs and provides experimental evidence on the possibility of'evidence briefings'improving that accuracy. The errors of public officials are large, with 49 percent of officials making errors that are at least 50 percent of objective benchmark data. The provision of briefings reduces these errors by a quarter of a standard deviation, but in line with theoretical predictions, organizational incentives mediate their effectiveness.

Keywords: Educational Sciences; Energy Policies&Economics; Public Sector Administrative&Civil Service Reform; Public Sector Administrative and Civil Service Reform; De Facto Governments; Democratic Government; Food Security; Health Care Services Industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-11-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/474061541787560854/pdf/WPS8644.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8644

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi (ryazigi@worldbank.org).