Do local court inefficiencies delay public works?

Public works and social protection in sub-Saharan Africa Do public works work for the poor?

Do Public Sector Reforms Get Rusty? Local Privatization in Spain

Recent evidence on the savings from private production of local public services has become increasingly ambiguous. Here we specify and estimate a model to explain municipal costs for solid waste collection. As we find no effect of the mode of production on costs, we put forward two hypotheses. First, progressive concentration and decreases in bidding competition may come to outweigh gains from ...

Stimulating Local Public Employment: Do General Grants Work?

Stimulating Local Public Employment: Do General Grants Work? The effectiveness of public funds in increasing public employment has long been a question on public and labor economists’ minds. In most federal countries local governments employ large fractions of the working population, meaning that a tool for stimulating local public employment can substantially affect the overall unemployment le...

A Supreme Court Primer for the Public

In writing The Supreme Court: How It Was, How It Is, William H. Rehnquist becomes the first sitting Chief Justice to author a book that explains the workings of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is not a treatise on constitutional doctrine; rather, it surveys the "borderland between American history and constitutional law" (p. 8). Chief Justice Rehnquist's book succeeds in providing the "int...

Public health interventions to reduce inequalities: what do we know works?

This commentary focuses on the notion of "what works" to reduce health inequalities. It begins by noting the need for and presence of a wide range of methodologies and approaches internationally. It then argues that it is useful to map out these contributions and those in the present Supplement against a set of principles (Macintyre, 2007) to guide the selection and implementation of public hea...