Making Government Accountable Lessons from a Federal Job…从联邦工作中制定政府负责任的教训.pdfVIP

CMPO Working Paper Series No. 03/083 Making Government Accountable: Lessons from a Federal Job Training Program Pascal Courty1 and Gerald Marschke2 1London Business School 2 University at Albany, State University of New York July 2003 Abstract We describe the evolution of a perfo rmance 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 JEL Classification: J33, L14 Address for Correspondence Department of Public Administration and Policy Milne 308 University at Albany State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 marschke@ Tel: 518 442 5274 Fax: 518 442 5298 CMPO is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Introduction Over the past decade and a half, interest in developing and implementing performance measurement systems in the public sector has grown as many policymakers and analysts now believe that such systems can improve ac