Letter Grading Government Efficiency

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

NBER Working Paper No. 18268
Issued in August 2012, Revised in October 2012
NBER Program(s):Economic Fluctuations and Growth Program, Law and Economics Program, Political Economy Program

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.

A non-technical summary of this paper is available in the December 2012 NBER Digest.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Digest by email.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w18268

Published: Alberto Chong & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Letter Grading Government Efficiency," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 277-299, 04. citation courtesy of

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