Do better monitoring institutions increase leadership quality in community organizations? Evidence from Uganda

• Autores: Guy Grossman, W. Walker Hanlon
• Localización: American Journal of Political Science, ISSN-e 1540-5907, Vol. 58, Nº. 3, 2014, págs. 669-686
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We offer a framework for analyzing the impact of monitoring�a commonly recommended solution to poor leadership�on the quality of democratically elected leaders in community organizations in low-income countries. In our model, groups may face a trade-off between leader ability and effort. If the group's ability to monitor the leader is low, then the leader may exert too little effort. A higher level of monitoring increases leader effort, raising the value of the public good. However, more intense monitoring may also drive higher-ability members to opt out of candidacy, reducing public-goods value. The result is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the level of monitoring and the value of the public good. The trade-off between leader effort and ability, however, only exists in the presence of sufficient private-income opportunities. These predictions are assessed using original data gathered from Ugandan farmer associations.