Call for proposals: CAF Research Program on State Capacity, Policy Implementation and Development Economic
Economic and social development requires the adoption of a series of policies and programs which need a certain level of administrative capacity from the State for their successful implementation. This Call for Proposals seeks to promote research on state capacity taking a broad view at the issue.
We seek to support studies that propose new measures of state capacity (i.e.measures that compare de jure versus de factoimplementation of public policies, regulations and administrative decisions).
Proposals may also look at reasons why effective delivery of services by government organizations may fail. A list of traditional factors mentioned in the literature includes problems in the selection and recruiting of public workers, characteristics of public sector employees and their motivation for entering government organizations, lack of training and technical capabilities and wrong incentives. Complementary explanations emphasize low external accountability of public service delivery.
Implementation failures could also be associated with the policy selection process. Practices adopted in distant contexts which are hard to transplant to the local idiosyncrasies and realities could induce government failures. On the other hand, increasing public sector efficiency through initiatives drawn from behavioral economics has received much attention in countries like the UK and the US, and studies experimenting with these ideas in Latin America will also be highly valued.
Proposals should be sent to investigacion@caf.com no later than January 31, 2014. Each proposal (up to four) will receive USD 15,000to finance the research.