In a growing number of countries, the delivery of social welfare services is contracted out to private providers, and increasingly, using performance-based contracts. Critics of performance-based incentive contracts stress their potential unintended effects, including cream-skimming and other...

This research undertakes a theoretical and empirical examination of high performance bonus systems in government, that is, incentive payments awarded by the federal government to state organizations or statewide programs to motivate and recognize high performance achievements. The paper draws...

Social investment funds, a widely used tool of development efforts, aim to support and strengthen local capacity for effective implementation of social and economic infrastructure projects through participatory, community-driven approaches. This working paper investigates whether these...

Temporary Help Services (THS) employment has been growing in size, particularly among disadvantaged workers. An extended policy debate focuses on the low earnings, limited benefits, and insecurity that such jobs appear to provide. We investigate the earnings and wage differentials observed...

The Programa Nacional de Becas Estudiantiles is a conditional cash transfer program designed to promote long-term human capital accumulation among Argentine youth and to reduce poverty. This study follows a 1999 cohort of students from 24 schools for five years. Propensity score matching methods...

Temporary help services (THS) firms are increasing their hiring of disadvantaged individuals and claiming more subsidies for doing so. Do these subsidies—the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW)—create incentives that improve employment outcomes for THS...

This paper examines the performance of the JTPA performance system, a widely emulated model for inducing efficiency in government organizations. We present a model of how performance incentives may distort bureaucratic decisions. We define cream skimming within the model. Two major empirical...