Career Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from the Sierra Leonean CHW Program

This study aims to contribute to our understanding of how to build effective state capacity. As highlighted in Finan, Olken, and Pande (2017), the poor performance of public sector workers is a key constraint for effective governance in many developing countries. Our study will provide causal evidence on whether the presence of a steep wage progression, combined with a low meritocracy regime, contributes to low worker performance in developing countries. This is motivated by two stylized facts from the World Bank’s Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators (WBI)