Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: May, 2022, Volume 90, Issue 3

Managers and Productivity in the Public Sector

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA19244
p. 1063-1084

Alessandra Fenizia

This paper studies the impacts of managers in the administrative public sector using novel Italian administrative data containing an output‐based measure of productivity. Exploiting the rotation of managers across sites, I find that a one standard deviation increase in managerial talent raises office productivity by 10%. These gains are driven primarily by the exit of older workers who retire when more productive managers take over. I use these estimates to evaluate the optimal allocation of managers to offices. I find that assigning better managers to the largest and most productive offices would increase output by at least 6.9%.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Managers and Productivity in the Public Sector"

Fenizia, Alessandra

This zip file contains the replication files for the manuscript.

Supplement to "Managers and Productivity in the Public Sector"

Fenizia, Alessandra

This online appendix contains material not found within the manuscript.