命令和无法控制：评估公共部门的集中问责制（英）

Command and Can’t Control Assessing Centralized Accountability in the Public Sector Saad GulzarJuan Felipe LadinoMuhammad Zia MehmoodDaniel Rogger Development EconomicsDevelopment Impact GroupSeptember 2025 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11200 Abstract A long-established and widely used approach to managementin government has been the transmission of information upa hierarchy, and centralized decision-making and oversight;colloquially known as ‘command and control’. This paperexamines accountability in such a system implemented atscale in Punjab, Pakistan. Using random variation in theintensity of accountability of the scheme, the paper shows that the corresponding de facto punishments had a negligi-ble impact on school or student outcomes. It uses detaileddata on the education production function to show thatthis fundamental component of command-and-controlapproaches does not induce bureaucratic action towardsimprovements in government performance. This paper is a product of the Development Impact Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by theWorld Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around theworld. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may becontacted at drogger@worldbank.org. A verified reproducibility package for this paper is available athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org, clickherefor direct access. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. CommandandCan’tControl:AssessingCentralizedAccountabilityinthePublicSector* SaadGulzar,JuanFelipeLadino,MuhammadZiaMehmood,DanielRogger† Keywords: Accountability, Bureaucracy, Education, Government JEL codes: D73, H11, H83 1Introduction How the bureaucracy performs is fundamental to the provision of high-quality public services toordinary citizens around the world (Besley et al., 2022). The vast majority of reforms to governmentadministration implemented at scale relate to shaping the de facto incentives in the bureaucracyinstead of introducing changes in legal and fiscal environments.1A canonical de facto bureaucraticreform is command-and-control management, or hierarchical systems of control where officials areexpected to follow centrally determined directions or face punishment.2The incentive effects ofsuch schemes depend on de facto accountability to senior managers cascading down the chain ofhierarchy. Governments around the world, faced with constraints on de jure changes in public sector incentives,have been adopting command-and-control management rapidly, with scarce evidence on theirefficacy. Following the purported success of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ‘delivery unit’,3over 80 countries, mimicking this original ‘delivery approach’, have set up centralized routines andoffices (see Figure 1) that “combine functions such as target-setting, monitoring, accountability, andproblem-solving with the aim of rapidly improving bureaucratic performance and service delivery”(Education Commission, 2023, p.7).While, what distinguishes these command-and-controlapproaches in public administration is the remarkable political and executive backing they havereceived around the world, evidence on these reforms, or the incentive effects of their accountabilitycomponents, remains thin. We study the implementation of a system-wide command-and-control delivery approach schemein the education public administration of Punjab, Pakistan, and focus on the assessment of itsaccountability effects. Monthly education data from over 50 thousand public schools was channeledto the highest executive authority and used to set targets and establish accountability throughout theorganizational hierarchy. This command-and-control scheme in Punjab is considered a showpieceof the centralized accountability delivery model: it was implemented to a very high standard forover six years, was advised by top experts in the world, and had the full backing and involvement of the most senior members of the executive (Barber, 2013; Chaudhry and Tajwar, 2021; Malik andBari, 2023).4 Our analysis focuses on how the intensity of accountability implemented within the scheme affects