This paper reports on a two-tiered experiment designed to separately identify the selection and effort margins of pay-for-performance (P4P). At the recruitment stage, teacher labor markets were randomly assigned to a pay- for-percentile or fixed-wage contract. Once recruits were placed, an...

Public sector organizations often rely on reports by local monitors that are costly to verify and that serve twin objectives: to incentivize agent performance, and to provide information for planning purposes. Received wisdom has it that pay for locally monitored performance (P4LMP) will result...

An increasingly important organisational design problem for many firms is to recoup general human capital rents while maintaining attractive career prospects for workers. We explore the role of information management in this context. In our model, an information management policy determines the...

This paper argues that bureaucrats are susceptible to `minimal squawk` behavior. I develop a simple model in which a desire to avoid criticism can prompt, otherwise public-spirited, bureaucrats to behave inefficiently. Decisions are taken to keep interest groups quiet and mistakes out of the...

This paper argues that government should pay greater heed to recruitment and retention when designing performance measurement systems for bureaucracies. In the face of pervasive rigidities in public sector pay, internal performance measurement rewards quitters and scars stayers and therefore...

Tenured public officials such as judges are often thought to be indifferent to theconcerns of the electorate and, as a result, potentially lacking in discipline butunlikely to pander to public opinion. We investigate this proposition empiricallyusing data on promotion decisions taken by senior...

Tenured public officials such as judges are often thought to be indifferent to the concerns of the elctorate and, as a result, potentially lacking in discipline but unlikely to pander to public opinion.  We investigate this proposition empirically using data on promotion decisions taken by...

This paper uses data on judicial citations to explore whether the diffusion and/or application of knowledge within an organisation is affected by worker connectivity. Developing a simple model of discretionary citations, we distinguish between two hypotheses: knowledge diffusion whereby...