Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms
通过挪威428个市镇的学校绩效数据与地方政治家调查实验，发现学校绩效对资源类改革偏好影响弱，但对治理类改革偏好影响强，且政治家普遍了解绩效信息。
Abstract Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource‐related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance‐related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability .