Curso Bogotá Summer School in Economics

A chronic problem affecting many developing countries is the poor performance of government organizations in the delivery of public services. Understanding factors that allow the public sector to motivate employees and function efficiently is of crucial importance within the context of economic development and poverty reduction. This short course will introduce students to the use of experimental methods for the study of topics related to the personnel economics of the state. The course will start with an overview of methodological issues relating to lab and field experiments. We will then critically discuss recent research employing experimental methods to examine a variety of topics, ranging from the motivations of public sector providers, to incentive systems that could help in the fight against unethical behavior and corruption, to interventions aimed at improving the quality of public sector delivery.