Bureaucrat Allocation in the Public Sector: Evidence from the World Bank

This study provides the first quantification of buyers' role in the outcome of R&D procurement contracts. We combine together four data sources on US federal R&D contracts, follow-on patented inventions, federal public workforce characteristics, and perception of their work environment. By exploiting the observability of deaths of federal employees, we find that managers' death events negatively affect innovation outcomes: a 1% increase in the share of relevant public officer deaths causes a decline of 32.3% of patents per contract, 20.5% patent citations per contract, and 34.3% patent claims per contract.These effects are driven by the deaths occurring in the 6 months before the contract is awarded, thereby indicating the relevance of the design and award stage relative to ex post contract monitoring. Lower levels of self-reported within-office cooperation also negatively impact R&D outcomes.

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“…This interpretation is also in line with Warren ( 2014 ) and Limodio ( 2021 ) who stress the importance of task‐specific knowledge.…”

Section: Endnotessupporting

confidence: 85%

Buyers' role in innovation procurement: Evidence from US military R&D contracts

Decarolis

Rassenfosse

Giuffrida

et al. 2021

Economics Manag Strategy

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“…We argue that individual differences between staff members also explain why the World Bank will vary in its quality of supervision. There are differences between TTLs in the importance they ascribe to project effectiveness (Briggs 2019a) and also their competence (Denizer et al 2013;Limodio 2021). These differences shape the ability of staff to build capacity in recipient countries and help willing governments to adhere to the World Bank's expectations.…”

Section: Supervisory Ability and Recipient Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another possible concern is that staff might be able to pick specific projects that are more promising. Recent research indicates that if anything, high-performing staff are allocated to more difficult contexts (Limodio 2021). Nevertheless, this is an option that warrants careful examination because we would face a selection bias.…”

Section: Selection Into Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing performance and winning trust: how World Bank staff shape recipient performance

Heinzel

Liese

2021

Rev Int Organ

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World Bank evaluations show that recipient performance varies substantially between different projects. Extant research has focused on country-level variables when explaining these variations. This article goes beyond country-level explanations and highlights the role of World Bank staff. We extend established arguments in the literature on compliance with the demands of International Organizations (IOs) and hypothesize that IO staff can shape recipient performance in three ways. First, recipient performance may be influenced by the quality of IO staff monitoring and supervision. Second, the leniency and stringency with which IO staff apply the aid agreement could improve recipient performance. Third, recipient performance may depend on whether IO staff can identify and mobilize supportive interlocutors through their networks in the recipient country. We test these arguments by linking a novel database on the tenure of World Bank task team leaders to projects evaluated between 1986 and 2020. The findings are consistent with the expectation that World Bank staff play an important role, but only in investment projects. There is substantial evidence that World Bank staff supervisory ability and country experience are linked to recipient performance in those projects. Less consistent evidence indicates that leniency could matter. These findings imply that World Bank staff play an important role in facilitating implementation of investment projects.

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“…Campa, 2011; Grembi et al, 2016;Gamalerio, 2017) and it is based on the comparison between the outcome before and after the reform for municipalities around the population threshold. 48 Appendix Table A5 shows this test for the main outcomes variables, corruption charges (columns 1-4) and budget indicators (columns [5][6][7][8]. In Panel a the optimal population bandwidth is adopted, while in Panel b an augmented population bandwidth is used, i.e.…”

Section: Appendix 1 (For Online Publication): Robustness Checks and Additional Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reform took place in 2013 and introduced a double preference voting conditioned on gender (Legge n. 215, 2012) in municipalities above the threshold of 5,000 inhabitants, coupled with gender quotas on candidate lists: voters can cast a vote for two candidates (instead of one), provided they are of different gender, and electoral lists for the municipal council must include at least one third of candidates of each gender. The aim of this policy was to increase 48 Following Grembi et al, 2016, the empirical model to be estimated is as follows:…”

Section: Appendix 1 (For Online Publication): Robustness Checks and Additional Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%