IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18346.html

The Politics of Public Service Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Sandholtz, Wayne Aaron

    (Nova School of Business and Economics)

Abstract

This paper provides experimental evidence on the electoral effect of a large education reform in a developing democracy. The reform significantly improved school quality on many dimensions (Romero, Sandefur, & Sandholtz, 2020). In this paper, I show that the reform reduced the incumbent party's pres- idential vote share by 2.1 percentage points (5%). The reform also reduced teachers' job satisfaction, support for the incumbent government, and political engagement. Electoral effects were positively correlated with effects on teachers' political engagement; the reform lost most votes where it caused greatest political disengagement of teachers.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandholtz, Wayne Aaron, 2025. "The Politics of Public Service Reform," IZA Discussion Papers 18346, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18346.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Natalie Bau, 2022. "Estimating an Equilibrium Model of Horizontal Competition in Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(7), pages 1717-1764.
    2. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    3. Rodrik, Dani & Mukand, Sharun, 2018. "The Political Economy of Ideas: On Ideas versus Interests in Policymaking," CEPR Discussion Papers 12820, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. World Bank, 2004. "World Development Report 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5987, April.
    5. Cesi Cruz & Philip Keefer & Julien Labonne & Francesco Trebbi, 2024. "Making Policies Matter: Voter Responses to Campaign Promises," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(661), pages 1875-1913.
    6. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 1996. "How Teachers' Unions Affect Education Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 671-718.
    7. Mitra Akhtari & Diana Moreira & Laura Trucco, 2022. "Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover, and the Quality of Public Services," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(2), pages 442-493, February.
    8. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    9. Nathaniel Hendren & Ben Sprung-Keyser, 2020. "A Unified Welfare Analysis of Government Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(3), pages 1209-1318.
    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. Wayne Aaron Sandholtz & Wayne Sandholtz, 2023. "The Politics of Public Service Reform: Experimental Evidence from Liberia," CESifo Working Paper Series 10633, CESifo.
    2. Hefeker, Carsten & Neugart, Michael, 2010. "Labor market regulation and the legal system," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 218-225, September.
    3. Laurent Bouton & Paola Conconi & Francisco Pino & Maurizio Zanardi, 2013. "Guns and Votes," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2013-39, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
      • Laurent Bouton & Paola Conconi & Francisco Pino & Maurizio Zanardi, 2013. "Guns and votes," Working Papers 43819146, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
      • Laurent Bouton & Paola Conconi & Francisco Pino & Maurizio Zanardi, 2014. "Guns and Votes," NBER Working Papers 20253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Zanardi, Maurizio & Conconi, Paola & Bouton, Laurent & Pino, Francisco, 2013. "Guns and Votes," CEPR Discussion Papers 9726, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Marcus Drometer, 2012. "Bureaucrats and short-term politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 149-163, April.
    5. Anders Olofsgård, 2003. "The Political Economy of Reform: Institutional Change as a Tool for Political Credibility," World Bank Publications - Reports 9232, The World Bank Group.
    6. Casas, Agustin, 2020. "The electoral benefits of unemployment, clientelism and distributive politics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    7. Wayne Aaron Sandholtz, 2022. "The politics of policy reform: experimental evidence from Liberia," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2202, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    8. Paola Profeta & Simona Scabrosetti, 2017. "The Political Economy of Taxation in Europe," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 220(1), pages 139-172, March.
    9. Pohan Fong & Daniel Diermeier, 2007. "Policy Persistence in Multi-party Parliamentary Democracies," 2007 Meeting Papers 248, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    11. Mizuno, Nobuhiro & Okazawa, Ryosuke, 2025. "A dynamic theory on clientelism and bureaucratic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    12. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    13. Anders Gustafsson, 2019. "Busy doing nothing: why politicians implement inefficient policies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 282-299, September.
    14. Francesco Caselli & Nicola Gennaioli, 2008. "Economics and Politics of Alternative Institutional Reforms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1197-1250.
    15. Peter J. Coughlin, 2015. "Probabilistic voting in models of electoral competition," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 13, pages 218-234, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    17. Randall S. Kroszner, 1999. "Is the Financial System Politically Independent? Perspectives on the Political Economy of Banking and Financial Regulation," CRSP working papers 492, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    18. Kari Irwin Otteburn, 2023. "All in favour? Indian business interests and the India-EU FTA," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 311-329, September.
    19. Stieglitz, Moritz & Setzer, Ralph, 2022. "Firm-level employment, labour market reforms, and bank distress," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    20. Joseph P. Newhouse, 2021. "An Ounce of Prevention," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 101-118, Spring.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:iza:izadps:dp18346. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.