work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any noncommercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.http://www.iadb.org 2016 i Abstract * This qualitative study explores the degree to which the merit-based selection of public managers leads to better public sector performance. Based on the findings from eight case studies in Chile and Peru, the introduction of the merit-based selection of public managers would have engendered a series of improvements in the internal management and practices of organizations─ more so than in institutional outcomes. Other intangible and perceived benefits include the manager's higher level of legitimacy in, as well as a stronger commitment to, the institution. The study also proposes a future agenda for research.JEL Codes: H10, H11, J45

No abstract