Incentivising bureaucrats through performance-based postings: Experimental evidence from Pakistan [1]

Across much of the developing world, supervisors use posting locations to incentivise bureaucrats. Yet, this is often done informally, raising concerns over transparency and the impartiality of supervisors. In this VoxDev talk, Adnan Khan discusses the findings of an experiment in Pakistan that formalised incentives for tax collectors. This involved ranking the performance of bureaucrats relative to one another, and an algorithm that assessed their location preferences. Based on this, bureaucrats were allocated the location of their next posting. Importantly, the researchers find that this improved performance significantly, with tax revenue increasing by six to nine percentage points

Standfirst: 
How can we best incentivise bureaucrats in a formal manner that avoids concerns over corruption?
Interviewee: 
adnan.khan [2]
Date Published: 
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Tags: 
Pakistan [3]
Punjab [4]
bureaucrats [5]
incentives [6]
formalisation [7]
Algorithms [8]
tax revenue [9]
Cover Image: 
Topic: 
Public Economics [10]
Related Content: 
The impact of social incentives on tax payment in Pakistan [11]
Bureaucrats in Russia: The cost of inefficiency [12]
Promotion incentives for public servants and improved service delivery [13]
Making moves matter [14]
Should civil servants be allowed to serve in their home areas? Evidence from India [15]
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