Martin J. Williams
Associate Professor in Public Management
Blavatnik School of Government
University of Oxford
My research is on management, policy implementation, and political economy, mostly focused on Africa.
Featured Paper (available here):
“The Political Economy of Unfinished Development Projects: Corruption, Clientelism, or Collective Choice?”
Abstract: Development projects like schools and boreholes are popular with politicians and voters alike, yet many developing countries are littered with half-finished projects that were abandoned mid-construction. This highly visible phenomenon has received little theoretical or empirical attention. I examine three plausible explanations: corruption, clientelism, and dynamically inconsistent collective choice. Using an original database of over 14,000 small development projects in Ghana, I estimate that approximately one-third of projects that start are never completed, consuming nearly one-fifth of all capital spending. I find evidence that supports the theory that unfinished projects are an inefficient outcome of failed intertemporal bargaining among local political actors, but is inconsistent with corruption and clientelism as major causes of non-completion. Fiscal institutions can increase completion rates by mitigating the operational consequences of these distributive pressures. These findings have implications for the political economy of public good provision, the design of intergovernmental transfers and aid delivery, and the development of state capacity.
