Accountability and yardstick competition in the public provision of education

Terra, Rafael; Mattos, Enlinson

doi:10.1016/j.jue.2016.12.001

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(53 reference statements)

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“…Our paper contributes to several strands of research. It adds to the political economy literature on yardstick competition (see, e.g., Salmon (2019) for an overview and Bordignon et al (2003), Revelli (2006), Büttner and von Schwerin (2016), and Terra and Mattos (2017) for empirical analyses of yardstick competition). At the most basic level, we advance this literature by studying citizens' beliefs about their state's policy performancean important but experimentally understudied aspect of yardstick-competition theory.…”

Section: Literature Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Providing citizens with comparative information on policy outcomes of different jurisdictions is an often-vaunted strategy to reward efficient public service provision and facilitate welfare-improving policy innovations. To evaluate the performance of their own political representatives, citizens can use observable policy outcomes of similar jurisdictions as a benchmark (e.g., Besley and Case, 1995a;Revelli, 2006;Revelli and Tovmo, 2007;Terra and Mattos, 2017). Such horizontal comparisons allow citizens to hold politicians accountable for their policy choices, facilitating the selection of highquality candidates with potentially positive effects on policy outcomes and welfare (e.g., Case, 1993;Besley and Case, 1995b;Congleton, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

et al. 2023

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Section: Literature Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

et al. 2023

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“…Since then the efficiency gains from yardstick competition have been widely reported as regulatory tool. Examples include port reforms in Mexico (Estache, González, and Trujillo 2002), efficiency patterns of local governments in Norway (Revelli and Tovmo 2007), welfare spending of 93 departments in France (Paul Elhorst and Fréret 2009), public education (Terra and Mattos 2017) or electricity distribution (Kumbhakar and Lien 2017).…”

Section: Regulation By Competitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing and enhancing competition to improve delivery of local services of solid waste collection

Bel

Sebő

2020

Waste Management

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Over the last two decades, Barcelona has implemented a far-reaching reform of the city's solid waste collection. In 2000, the city was divided in four zones, with four separate solid waste collection contracts being awarded to private firms, with none being allowed to obtain more than two zones, a rule that was revised in 2009 to just one contract per firm. This division of the market via exclusive territories sought to enhance competition in the expectation of the convergence of relative costs, efficiency and service quality throughout the city. This study analyzes and evaluates the creation of lots as a tool of competition with monthly observations of costs and outputs between 2015 and 2019. Main findings are that firms producing in larger zones report higher costs, that increased competition was not sufficient to lead to converging costs, and that none of the firms operate under increasing returns to scale. Based on our results, we recommend creating an additional zone. We further suggest that if a public firm managed one of the zones, the regulator would obtain more reliable information on the service costs and technical characteristics, thus increasing her capabilities as supervisor of the private firms delivering the service in other zones.

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“…Assumimos que o principal mecanismo de transferência de informação em nosso modelo foram as interações sociais em diferentes municípios, compartilhando suas percepções sobre as chances de se tornarem beneficiárias do PBF 30 . Para capturar a dinâmica desse mecanismo, elaboramos um indicador específico para nossa análise, esperando contribuir para a literatura acadêmica da área que tipicamente enfatiza comparação entre municípios contíguos e com fronteira comum -por exemplo, (ALLERS; ELHORST, 2005;ROSEN;HINES, 1993;BAICKER, 2005;TERRA;MATTOS, 2015). No apêndice do capítulo preparamos uma nota complementar (ver Nota Complementar 2) exemplificando o método de cálculo desse indicador e explicitando suas principais propriedades.…”

Section: A Influência Do Programa Nos Demais Municípiosunclassified

A implementação de políticas públicas com agenciamento e múltiplos principais : análise da difusão do Programa Bolsa Família

Bastos¹

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We have analyzed the diffusion of the Bolsa Família Program, emphasizing the importance of the beneficiary monitoring the Program in their municipality and inducing local governments to commit their efforts to implement the program. This conditional cash transfer program expanded rapidly countrywide and kept its level of targeting the poor comparable to the best international practices. Using a stylized theoretical model, we test whether voters in Brazil monitored the efforts of mayors in implementing the Bolsa Familia Program, rewarding those that were more effective by reelecting them in the 2004 municipal elections. Voters can mitigate political agency problems by comparing the performance of their politicians with those of neighboring municipalities and rewarding or punishing them in their bids for reelection. We employ a quasi-experimental design to analyze the electoral impact of the Bolsa Familia Program during the early stages when several factors that were not directly under the municipalities' control hindered its implementation. We find robust evidence that, in those places where the implementation of the program is lagging behind that of neighboring towns, mayors have a strong incentive to step up their efforts. This result configures an electoral game where incumbent mayors feel obliged to at least match the performance of their peers in order to achieve reelection. This mechanism helps to explain the quick diffusion of the Bolsa Familia Program across the country. In addition, we examined whether electoral incentives influenced mayors to improve their performance in implementing the PBF, assessing whether mayors in their first term (and trying for reelection) outperform their peers in the second term,. Taking advantage of the discontinuities in elections defined by narrow margins of victory, we mitigated the problem of endogeneity by omitted variable and found evidence that mayors in the first term outperformed their second term peers by 12%. Moreover, if the analysis is restricted to municipalities with high electoral competition or with a high proportion of the population in poverty, the mayor's performance in the first term is found to be almost 30% higher. These results were robust to different methods of estimation. In sum, we bring evidence that voters, in possession of relevant information to evaluate the performance of local government, strengthen the control exercised by the federal government on municipalities in implementing the Bolsa Familia Program and create incentives for improved service delivery. Our empirical results are anchored by agency theory with multiple principals: when an agent hired to provide a service is monitored by various parties which share common goals and whose actions are mutually reinforcing, the result is an equilibrium that reduces agent income and/or shirking.

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Accountability and yardstick competition in the public provision of education

Cited by 10 publications

References 50 publications

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

Introducing and enhancing competition to improve delivery of local services of solid waste collection

A implementação de políticas públicas com agenciamento e múltiplos principais : análise da difusão do Programa Bolsa Família

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