Under Review
Foreign Aid and the Performance of Bureaucrats (Job Market Paper)
A well-functioning bureaucracy is key to development. While significant work examines the impact of foreign aid on various development outcomes, comparably little work addresses its impact on bureaucracies. And yet, foreign aid impacts the priorities and functioning of bureaucracies across the developing world. I argue that the introduction of aid projects to bureaucracies changes financial and social aspects of work over which bureaucrats hold important preferences. As a result, bureaucrats make trade-offs between government work and aid projects. I examine this argument using survey, experimental, and interview data from nearly 600 bureaucrats across six central government ministries in Uganda. I find that bureaucrats are willing to divert effort away from core government work and towards aid projects as financial incentives on aid projects increase, suggesting that while donors can use financial incentives to boost bureaucratic performance on projects, they may simultaneously undermine bureaucratic capacity more generally.
The Effect of Government Intervention on the Operational Decisions of NGOs: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Three Countries
with Simon Hollerbauer, Graeme Robertson, Jeremy Springman, and Erik Wibbels.
Repressive governments seek to influence the behavior of domestic NGOs with both carrots and sticks. How do these efforts shape NGO operations? We identify common actions to influence NGOs: repressive and accomodative interventions in NGO operations, positive and negative rhetoric, and cooptation. Using a survey experiment of 425 NGO directors in Cambodia, Uganda, and Serbia, we investigate how community-level variation in the prevalence of these actions shape NGO preferences over where, how, and with whom they work. As expected, government interventions shape where NGOs prefer to work, raising concerns about how NGO benefits are distributed. Additionally, cooptation isolates NGOs, making them less likely to involve the public in planning or partner with other NGOs. However, moderate repression increases NGO preferences for organizing public action, suggesting NGOs see public mobilization as an effective strategy to resist some forms of repression. Importantly, these results hold across NGOs operating in very different sectors and countries. Panel data from Cambodia documents this finding in self-reported real-world behavior. These findings shed light on how NGOs navigate democratic backsliding.
Working Papers
Tax Morale and the Limits of Meritocracy
with Diego Romero
Taxes are critical to building state capacity, yet many developing countries struggle with ensuring tax compliance. Existing research demonstrates that citizens' willingness to pay taxes increases with greater trust in the state. However, despite citizens primarily interacting with bureaucrats, we know little about how perceptions of bureaucratic practices influence tax morale. This study investigates whether citizens' perceptions of meritocracy in bureaucratic recruitment and promotion affect their willingness to pay taxes. We hypothesize that non-meritocratic practices signal corruption and incompetence, undermining public trust and reducing tax compliance. Using survey data from 1,500 households across 30 Guatemalan municipalities, we find higher perceptions of meritocratic recruitment are associated with higher perceived municipal capacity, whereas higher perceptions of meritocratic promotion (lower mayoral discretion over personnel promotion) exhibit the opposite effect. Neither type of meritocratic perception is significantly associated with self-reported tax payments, although respondents demonstrate higher willingness to pay taxes when mayors have more control over promotions.. The findings suggest citizens value both merit-based recruitment and political oversight of bureaucratic personnel.
Work in Progress
Traditional Gender Norms, Clientelism, and Corruption: Survey of African Entrepreneurs
with Diego Romero, Harunobu Saijo, and Ghulam Dastgir Khan
This two-part study investigates how traditional gender norms—captured by the Male Dominance Index (MDI)—shape African entrepreneurs’ involvement in (1) corruption and (2) clientelism. First, in the corruption component, we ask whether patriarchal norms exacerbate gender disparities in bribery-related behaviors and attitudes. Specifically, we consider whether women in more male-dominant societies (a) report higher social pressure to offer bribes, (b) show lower willingness to engage in corrupt deals, (c) suffer higher levels of predatory extortion, (d) perceive reduced efficacy from corrupt exchanges, and (e) encounter harsher punishment for corrupt acts. Second, in the clientelism component, we probe whether patriarchal settings discourage female entrepreneurs from participating in electoral exchanges, such as vote-buying and turnout-buying, or from leveraging personal political connections. Here, we test whether women are targeted less by these inducements, have weaker ties to local powerbrokers, and face stronger social sanctions if they engage in clientelistic behavior. To test our hypotheses, we conduct a large-scale survey of 2,000–4,000 entrepreneurs (data collection is ongoing) across more than 15 African countries, matching each respondent’s self-identified ethnic affiliation to MDI scores. This allows us to pinpoint how male-dominant norms at the group level intersect with individual gendered experiences. Our measurement strategy includes direct questions about corruption and clientelism, as well as conjoint experiments.
Ongoing Projects
Refugee Perceptions of Resettlement Policy and Local Integration
with Manya Kagan, Guy Grossman, and Ibrahim Kasirye
Funded by: Displaced Livelihoods Initiative
Just 1 percent of displaced people are resettled to the 37 official resettlement countries, meaning many refugees face an uncertain future, and will spend a large part of their lives away from the homes they knew and without the possibility of resettlement. Our study examines refugees’ perceptions of resettlement criteria and how these perceptions affect their willingness to invest in local integration while living in host countries. We use Uganda, Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country, as our empirical case. We are currently undertaking an exploratory study comparing refugee perceptions with actual policies and practices related to resettlement. This involves conducting key informant interviews with officials working in organizations in the refugee resettlement space. In January, we will conduct focus group discussions with refugees living in Uganda to understand their beliefs about resettlement and their efforts at integration. We then plan to seek further funding for a two-stage randomized controlled trial (RCT) testing whether providing accurate resettlement policy information and teaching local language skills improves social and economic integration for refugees.