Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Best, Michael Carlos; Hjort, Jonas; Szakonyi, David
• 署名单位: Columbia University; University of London; University College London; George Washington University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191598
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2121-2167
• 关键词: high wage workers; spending evidence; procurement; FIRMS; Heterogeneity; performance; REFORM; DISCRETION; impacts; RUSSIA

摘要

Bureaucrats implement policy. How important are they for a state's productivity? And do the trade-offs 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 effective-ness 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.