This article tests whether governors' work experience explains their state performance. Although the experience‐performance relationship has been researched, empirical studies report inconsistent results. This inconsistency might be due to the dissimilar conceptualization and operationalization of the work experience construct, for it can be conceptualized in qualitative or quantitative components. To address this disparity, the authors follow Tesluk and Jacob's conceptualization by operationalizing gubernatorial experience across three dimensions: type (qualitative component), number of jobs, and years of work experience (quantitative component). The study tests the moderating effects of state context (level of violence) on the experience‐performance relationship, relying on data derived from 32 Mexican states over 16 years. Education outputs (high school enrollment) and health outcomes (infant mortality rate) are used to assess state performance. Results indicate that only the qualitative dimension of governors' work experience boosts state performance by reducing infant mortality and increasing high school enrollment. However, this positive effect is undermined by state violence. The number of jobs decreases gubernatorial performance, magnified by the degree of state violence.

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As one of the reforms supported by the New Public Management movement, Performance Management Systems (PMSs) have been implemented worldwide, across various policy areas and different levels of government. PMSs require public organizations to establish clear goals, measure indicators of these purposes, report this information, and, ultimately, link this information with strategic decisions aimed at improving agencies’ performances. Therefore, the components of any PMS include: (1) strategic planning; (2) data collection and analysis (performance measurement); and (3) data utilization for decision-making (performance management). However, the degree of adoption and implementation of PMS components varies across both countries and levels of government. Therefore, in understanding the role of PMSs in public administration, it is important to recognize that the drivers explaining the adoption of PMS components may differ from those explaining their implementation. Although the goal of any PMS is to boost government performance, the existent empirical evidence assessing PMS impact on organizational performance reports mixed results, and suggests that the implementation of PMSs may generate some unintended consequences. Moreover, while worldwide there is a steady increase in the adoption of performance metrics, the same cannot be said about the use of these metrics in decision-making or performance management. Research on the drivers of adoption and implementation of PMSs in developing countries is still lacking.

Several countries worldwide have experienced increasing immigration waves. Studies have explained immigration attitudes mainly in terms of cultural threats and material self-interest. However, scarce attention has been given to chief executives' empathy toward the causes of migration, the impact of which may be moderated by the size of the migration wave. We test these propositions on data drawn from a survey-experiment using 101 Latin American and Caribbean mayors as subjects. Mayors were presented with hypothetical situations in which they had to approve or reject an experimentally manipulated number of immigrants. The cause of their migration was also manipulated by randomly presenting mayors a number of immigrants due to either an earthquake (natural disaster), a civil conflict, or an unspecified cause (control group). Findings show 79 percent of mayors approved immigrants regardless of the cause. Mayors are more likely to approve immigrants when the migration cause is stated. However, mayoral approval of immigrants due to disasters is not statistically different from mayoral approval of immigrants due to civil conflict. When the size of the immigration wave increases, mayors are still more likely to accept immigrants due to natural disasters, but less likely to accept immigrants due to civil conflict. Interestingly, South American, Caribbean and Central American mayors tend to be more empathetic toward immigrants than their Mexican colleagues.

The decentralization of responsibilities has led to considerable variation in subnational performance. In this chapter, we explore the determinants of subnational government performance by suggesting that governors’ education (codified knowledge) and experience (uncodified knowledge) explain education outputs and health outcomes. We test our propositions in two data sets derived from 32 Mexican states and 32 Colombian departments during 1995–2010 and 2004–2013, respectively. Based on their findings, we caution against generalizing results, because factors driving performance in Mexican states differ from those boosting performance in Colombian departments. Neither governors’ codified nor uncodified knowledge drives subnational performance in Colombia. However, governors’ uncodified knowledge (experience) does explain health outcomes in Mexican states. Moreover, although political factors (e.g., partisanship and party ideology) explain health performance in Mexican states, no political factor does so in the Colombian departments. In sum, what drives performance in one country may not have the same explanatory power in another country.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was intended to reduce inequalities in access to healthcare resources. However, a 2012 Supreme Court decision allowed states to opt out of a key component of the policy, leading to even greater variation in Medicaid’s implementation. Using this variation, we estimate the effect of the ACA Medicaid expansion and racial dynamics on federal Medicaid-CHIP transfers received by states at the county level. To do so, we use a difference-in-differences specification and allow the expansion effect to vary across counties with different population shares of Black Americans. We find that Medicaid expansion increases the funds that are sent to counties, but additional analyses show that the racial demographics of a county also serve to influence how federal resources are apportioned. Specifically, the analyses reveal a curvilinear relationship between the proportion of Black residents and the dispersal of funds.

Despite the highlighted positive effects of work autonomy, little is known about what drives street-level bureaucrats' (SLBs') work autonomy preferences. We propose a combined framework that applies insights from Pay-for-Performance and Prospect Theory to examine whether incentive type (monetary sanctions vs. bonus) and framing of sanctions (negative vs. positive) influence SLBs' job autonomy preferences. We use data from a survey experiment of 208 healthcare SLBs. Bureaucrats were told their employers were required to monthly post their performance information, and then bureaucrats were assigned to one of four possible treatment groups in which we manipulated: (1) incentive type to boost performance (monetary sanction vs. financial bonus), and (2) the framing of monetary sanctions (positive vs. negative). Results report no framing effects and general preference for partial work autonomy. However, the larger the potential monetary bonus, the more likely SLBs opt for preferring full work autonomy. Findings offer practical implications for managers' approach to encourage bureaucratic behavior.

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