Making Government Accountable: Lessons from a Federal Job Training Program

Pascal Courty and Gerald Marschke

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation from The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: We describe the evolution of a performance measurement system in a government job-training program. In this program, a federal agency establishes performance measures and standards for sub-state agencies. We show that the performance measurement system’s evolution is at least partly explained as a process of trial-and-error, characterized by a feedback loop: the federal agency establishes performance measures, the local managers learn how to game them, the federal agency learns about gaming and reformulates the performance measures, leading to possibly new gaming, and so on. The dynamics suggest that implementing a performance measurement system in government is not a one-time challenge but benefits from careful monitoring and perhaps frequent revision.

Keywords: performance measurement; performance incentives; government organisation; organisational dynamic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J33 L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2003-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mfd
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Working Paper: Making Government Accountable: Lessons from a Federal Job Training Program (2004)
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