IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/24383.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Postings

Author

Listed:
  • Adnan Q. Khan
  • Asim Ijaz Khwaja
  • Benjamin A. Olken

Abstract

Bureaucracies often post staff to better or worse locations, ostensibly to provide incentives. Yet we know little about whether this works, with heterogeneity in preferences over postings impacting effectiveness. We propose a performance-ranked serial dictatorship mechanism, whereby bureaucrats sequentially choose desired locations in order of performance. We evaluate this using a two-year field experiment with 525 property tax inspectors in Pakistan. The mechanism increases annual tax revenue growth by 30-41 percent. Inspectors that our model predicts face high equilibrium incentives under the scheme indeed increase performance more. Our results highlight the potential of periodic merit-based postings in enhancing bureaucratic performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Adnan Q. Khan & Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Benjamin A. Olken, 2018. "Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Postings," NBER Working Papers 24383, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24383
    Note: DEV PE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24383.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Lakshmi Iyer & Anandi Mani, 2012. "Traveling Agents: Political Change and Bureaucratic Turnover in India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 723-739, August.
    3. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    4. Ernesto Dal Bó & Frederico Finan & Martín A. Rossi, 2013. "Strengthening State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public Service," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 1169-1218.
    5. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2013. "Team Incentives: Evidence From A Firm Level Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(5), pages 1079-1114, October.
    6. Kevin J. Boudreau & Karim R. Lakhani & Michael Menietti, 2016. "Performance responses to competition across skill levels in rank-order tournaments: field evidence and implications for tournament design," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(1), pages 140-165, February.
    7. Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1992. "Optimal Incentive Contracts in the Presence of Career Concerns: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 468-505, June.
    8. Michael Carlos Best & Jonas Hjort & David Szakonyi, 2023. "Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(8), pages 2121-2167, August.
    9. Raymond Fisman & Yongxiang Wang, 2017. "The Distortionary Effects of Incentives in Government: Evidence from China's "Death Ceiling" Program," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 202-218, April.
    10. Adnan Q. Khan & Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Benjamin A. Olken, 2019. "Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Postings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 237-270, January.
    11. Vincent P. Crawford & Nagore Iriberri, 2007. "Level-k Auctions: Can a Nonequilibrium Model of Strategic Thinking Explain the Winner's Curse and Overbidding in Private-Value Auctions?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(6), pages 1721-1770, November.
    12. Martin Feldstein, 1999. "Tax Avoidance And The Deadweight Loss Of The Income Tax," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 674-680, November.
    13. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Is the Taxable Income Elasticity Sufficient to Calculate Deadweight Loss? The Implications of Evasion and Avoidance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 31-52, August.
    14. Bull, Clive & Schotter, Andrew & Weigelt, Keith, 1987. "Tournaments and Piece Rates: An Experimental Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 1-33, February.
    15. Uwe Sunde, 2009. "Heterogeneity and performance in tournaments: a test for incentive effects using professional tennis data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(25), pages 3199-3208.
    16. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sonmez, 1998. "Random Serial Dictatorship and the Core from Random Endowments in House Allocation Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 689-702, May.
    17. Lars-Gunnar Svensson, 1999. "Strategy-proof allocation of indivisible goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 16(4), pages 557-567.
    18. Shapley, Lloyd & Scarf, Herbert, 1974. "On cores and indivisibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-37, March.
    19. Adnan Q. Khan & Asim I. Khwaja & Benjamin A. Olken, 2016. "Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 219-271.
    20. Colin F. Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho & Juin-Kuan Chong, 2004. "A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 861-898.
    21. Bandiera, Oriana & Barankay, Iwan & Rasul, Imran, 2013. "Team incentives: evidence from a firm level," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 53141, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Khan, Adnan Q. & Khwaja, Asim Ijaz & Olken, Benjamin A., 2016. "Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Transfers," Working Paper Series rwp17-006, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    3. Andrew Dustan & Stanislao Maldonado & Juan Manuel Hernandez-Agramonte, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale field experiments in Peru," Working Papers 136, Peruvian Economic Association.
    4. Czerny, Achim I. & Fosgerau, Mogens & Jost, Peter-J. & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2019. "Why pay for jobs (and not for tasks)?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 419-433.
    5. Adnan Q. Khan & Asim I. Khwaja & Benjamin A. Olken, 2016. "Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 219-271.
    6. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur & Arjan Non & Willem Verbeke, 2015. "The Effects of Prize Spread and Noise in Elimination Tournaments: A Natural Field Experiment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 521-569.
    7. Deserranno, Erika & León-Ciliotta, Gianmarco, 2022. "Promotions and Productivity: The Role of Meritocracy and Pay Progression in the Public Sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 15837, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. David Gill & Zdenka Kissová & Jaesun Lee & Victoria Prowse, 2019. "First-Place Loving and Last-Place Loathing: How Rank in the Distribution of Performance Affects Effort Provision," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 494-507, February.
    9. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    10. Sun, Sophia Li & Habib, Ahsan, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of tournament incentives: A survey of the literature in accounting and finance," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    11. Dustan, Andrew & Hernandez-Agramonte, Juan Manuel & Maldonado, Stanislao, 2023. "Motivating bureaucrats with behavioral insights when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale field experiments in Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    12. Henry Eyring & Patrick J. Ferguson & Sebastian Koppers, 2021. "Less Information, More Comparison, and Better Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 657-711, May.
    13. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    14. Andrew Dustan & Juan Manuel Hernandez-Agramonte & Stanislao Maldonado, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale," Natural Field Experiments 00664, The Field Experiments Website.
    15. John A. List & Daan van Soest & Jan Stoop & Haiwen Zhou, 2020. "On the Role of Group Size in Tournaments: Theory and Evidence from Laboratory and Field Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4359-4377, October.
    16. Hummy Song & Anita L. Tucker & Karen L. Murrell & David R. Vinsonc, 2018. "Closing the Productivity Gap: Improving Worker Productivity Through Public Relative Performance Feedback and Validation of Best Practices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2628-2649, June.
    17. Catalina Tejada & Eliana Ferrara & Henrik Kleven & Florian Blum & Oriana Bandiera & Michel Azulai, 2015. "State Effectiveness, Growth, and Development," Working Papers id:6668, eSocialSciences.
    18. Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez & M. Utku Ünver, 2004. "Kidney Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 457-488.
    19. Takamiya, Koji, 2001. "Coalition strategy-proofness and monotonicity in Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 201-213, March.
    20. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24383. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.