Bureaucracies often post staff to better or worse locations, ostensibly to provide incentives. Yet we know little about whether this works, with heterogeneity in preferences over postings impacting effectiveness. We propose a performance-ranked serial dictatorship mechanism, whereby bureaucrats sequentially choose desired locations in order of performance. We evaluate this using a two-year field experiment with 525 property tax inspectors in Pakistan. The mechanism increases annual tax revenue growth by 30–41 percent. Inspectors whom our model predicts face high equilibrium incentives under the scheme indeed increase performance more. Our results highlight the potential of periodic merit-based postings in enhancing bureaucratic performance.

We study the impact of providing school report cards with test scores on subsequent test scores, prices, and enrollment in markets with multiple public and private providers. A randomly selected half of our sample villages (markets) received report cards. This increased test scores by 0.11 standard deviations, decreased private school fees by 17 percent, and increased primary enrollment by 4.5 percent. Heterogeneity in the treatment impact by initial school test scores is consistent with canonical models of asymmetric information. Information provision facilitates better comparisons across providers, and improves market efficiency and child welfare through higher test scores, higher enrollment, and lower fees.

We assess whether financing can help private schools, which now account for one-third of primary school enrollment in low- and middle-income countries. Our experiment allocated unconditional cash grants to either one (L) or all (H) private schools in a village. In both arms, enrollment and revenues increased, leading to above-market returns. However, test scores increased only in H schools, accompanied by higher fees, and a greater focus on teachers. We provide a model demonstrating that market forces can provide endogenous incentives to increase quality and increased financial saturation can be used to leverage competition, generating socially desirable outcomes.