Public sector performance, prestige and promotion

Using cross-country data for 51 countries, including 23 in Africa, the author controls for differences in per capita income and measures the effect of structural variables on a number of outcomes, including the quality, integrity and prestige of public service. He finds merit-based recruitment and promotion to have a positive, independent effect on the quality and the integrity, but not the prestige, of public sector bureaucracies. Better remuneration of high officials increases the quality, integrity and - for non-African countries - the prestige of public sector employment. New Public Management, measured indirectly as the extent to which high officials intersperse private and public sector careers, has no apparent effect on quality or integrity, but it is associated with low prestige of public service, making it difficult to recruit and retain talented professionals. This was prepared as a background paper for the World Public Sector Report 2005 (United Nations, New York, Sales No. E.05.II.H.5)