NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Letter Grading Government Efficiency

Alberto Chong, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer

NBER Working Paper No. 18268
Issued in August 2012
NBER Program(s):   EFG   LE   POL

We mailed letters to non-existent business addresses in 159 countries (10 per country), and measured whether they come back to the return address in the US and how long it takes. About 60% of the letters were returned, taking over 6 months, on average. The results provide new objective indicators of government efficiency across countries, based on a simple and universal service, and allow us to shed light on its determinants. The evidence suggests that both technology and management quality influence the quality of government.

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This paper was revised on October 11, 2012

Acknowledgments

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