Research

Selected publications:

Papers:

  • Does political corruption reduce pro-social behavior by bureaucrats? Lab experimental evidence from Bangladesh, with Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling, Kim Sass Mikkelsen, Christian Schuster, Kazi Maruful Islam and Taiabur Rahman in Governance 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gove.12900

  • The Distributive Politics of Privately Financed Infrastructure Agreements in Governance

http://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12824

  • Accountability and Corruption Displacement: Evidence from Italy in Journal of Public Policy

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X22000113

  • Electoral Rules, Women’s Representation and the Qualification of Politicians, with Paola Profeta, in Comparative Political Studies

https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211047414

  • Hybrid Governance and the Attribution of Political Responsibility: Experimental Evidence from the United States, with Paolo Belardinelli and Anthony Bertelli, in Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory

https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muab014

  • The Political Cost of Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Evidence from Colombian Infrastructure Development, with Anthony Bertelli and Camila Angulo Amaya, in Governance

https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12443

Books:

  • Partnership Communities: Political Accountability and the Success of Infrastructure Development Around the World, with Anthony Bertelli, Michele Castiglioni and Paolo Belardinelli, Cambridge University Press, Elements Series

https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/partnership-communities/45AF9BB0E7DEFD8AF6400152097094B6

Book chapters:

  • New Frontiers in the Politics of Public-Private Partnerships, with Anthony Bertelli in Research Agenda for Public-Private Partnerships and the Governance of Infrastructure: New Frontiers and Themes in a Contested World edited by Carsten Greve and Graeme Hodge, Edward Elgar Publishing

https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781839105876/9781839105876.00014.xml

Work in progress:

Papers:

  • Policymakers’ Preferences Over Public-Private Procurement and Credit-Claiming: Experimental Evidence, with Paolo Belardinelli and Nathan Lee (under review)

Abstract:

We study politicians’ preferences over procurement and how they can be affected by the credit claim potential of projects. A survey experiment on a sample of US elected local policymakers allows us to test how incumbents can strategically use infrastructure projects as part of their electoral campaigns when seeking re-election. Elected local policymakers are presented with a scenario in which they are asked to imagine that they are going to stand for office again after their current mandate and that the development of a new infrastructure project has just been approved in their district. We manipulate the type of project and whether the project will be delivered by private or public actors. We do not observe different performance expectations depending on the mode of delivery, neither in terms of expected compliance with deadlines, nor in terms of expected beneficial impact of the project on their constituency. However, we do find that policymakers are more likely to claim credit for projects in which the government has some degree of involvement, compared to projects whose mode of delivery include only private actors. In other words, projects whose responsibility can be directly attributed to policymakers are more likely to become the object of credit-claiming behavior, independent of their expected benefits. Policymakers appear to weight their own electoral expediencies (benefits of attributability) over the expected benefit of a project when deciding how to engage in credit-claiming behavior, which has some potentially important implications for democracies in the long-term.

  • Behind the Vote: The Relative Importance of Descriptive and Substantive Representation for Gender-Based Voting, with Lotte Hargrave (under review)

Abstract:

While early research into election outcomes found that voters were less likely to vote for women candidates, recent accounts suggest that voters do not disproportionately punish women at the ballot box and, instead, may now even harbour a slight preference for women. Given voters no longer seem to hold an outright preference for men or women, we ask: how is gender used as a heuristic in voter decision-making? We aim to discern whether voters support women simply because they are women or because they make gender-based assumptions about women’s policy platforms. To address this, we field a novel experiment where we vary whether respondents are provided with information only about politicians’ descriptive characteristics, substantive issue priorities, or both. Consistent with past work, we find that respondents prefer women to men, but that respondents’ no longer hold outright gendered preferences once provided with information on politicians’ policy priorities. Our research contributes to understanding how politicians’ descriptive characteristics continue to influence voters’ decisions when electing political representatives.

  • How Mission Motivation and De Facto Decentralization Affect Bureaucrats’ Accountability Dilemmas: The Case of Thailand, with Dan Honig (under review)

Abstract: Drawing on over 130 interviews and surveys with bureaucrats in eight Thai districts, we explore how district-level bureaucrats navigate accountability dilemmas: formal accountability to Bangkok headquarters versus informal accountability to district-level fellow bureaucrats and citizens. These dilemmas materialize when there is misalignment between what bureaucrats think best serves district welfare and the policy directives they receive from central ministries. There is substantial variation in how individuals resolve these dilemmas – choosing to comply, resist or adapt implementation of directives perceived to be contrary to local welfare. We find that individuals’ actions are influenced by their degree of autonomy, their level of mission motivation, and their interactions with peers and district heads. We shed light on how de facto decentralization, under certain conditions, can give bureaucrats the space and sense of empowerment to undertake their work in ways they feel are more compatible with citizens’ welfare.

All working papers are available upon request.

Policy papers:

  • Using Microdata for Strategic Human Resource Management and Fiscal Planning in the Public Sector, with Daniel Ortega Nieto and Rafael Alves de Albuquerque Tavares. For the World Bank book: ‘Government Analytics: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration’ edited by Daniel Rogger and Christian Schuster
  • Government Analytics Using Data on Task and Project Completion, with Daniel Rogger and Martin Williams. For the World Bank book: ‘Government Analytics: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration’ edited by Daniel Rogger and Christian Schuster

Both available here: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/government-analytics?cid=pub_tt_wbpublications_en_ext