Browsing by Author "Nistotskaya, Marina"

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Blockchain Technology A Trust or Control Machine? Theory and Experimental Evidence
(2022-03) Đorđe, Milosav; Nistotskaya, Marina; The QoG Institute
Blockchaintechnologyhasattractedconsiderableinterestinthelast15years.It is arguedthatBlockchaincansustainanytransactionofvalue,beitmonetaryorinformation, in amannerthatissecureandindependentofinterpersonaltrust.Yet,thereremainslittle understanding onwhetherandhowthistechnologyenablestrust-freetransactions.Thispaper providesanoveltheoreticalaccountontherelationshipbetweentrustandBlockchaintechnology. Furthermore,ittestsasetofhypotheses,associatedwiththeconceptionofBlockchainasatrust- free environment,throughanonlineexperimentinwhichthepropertiesofBlockchain-based smart contactsareexploited.TheresultsindicatethatthepresenceofBlockchaintechnology doesnoteliminatetrustingandtrustworthybehaviorfromhumaninteractions.Onthecontrary, in comparisontothebaselinegroup,thebehavioroftheparticipantsintheBlockchaintreatment exhibited moretrustingandtrustworthybehavior,indicatingsupportfortheclaimthatthis technologymightindeedbeunderstoodasa“trust-buildingmachine”.
Bureaucratic Structure, Regulatory Quality and Entrepreneurship in a Comparative Perspective: Cross-Sectional and Panel Data Evidence
(2014-07) Nistotskaya, Marina; Cingolani, Luciana V.; QoG Institute
This paper examines the effect of meritocratic recruitment and tenure protection in public bureaucracies on regulatory quality and business entry rates in a global sample. Utilizing a cross-country measure on the extent of meritocratic entry to bureaucracy and a time-series indicator of tenure protection, it subjects theoretical claims that these features improve the epistemic qualities of bureaucracies and also serve as a credible commitment device to empirical test. We find that, conditional on a number of economic, political and legal factors, countries where bureaucracies are more insulated from day-to-day oversight by individual political principals through the institutional features under consideration tend to have both better regulation, specifically business regulation, and higher rates of business entry. Our findings suggest that bureaucratic structure has an indirect effect on entrepreneurship rates through better regulatory quality, but also exert a direct independent effect.
Credible Enforcement Before Credible Commitment: Exploring the Importance of Sequencing
(2013-03) D'Arcy, Michelle; Nistotskaya, Marina; QoG Institute
States that are both strong and democratic are the most capable of delivering human development. Existing rational choice accounts of collective action and credible commitment have provided us with the answer as to why this is the case: effective social order depends on the ability of the state, as the external enforcer of collective agreements, to monitor compliance and punish free-riders (credible enforcement) and that the state is constrained to only act in the collective good (credible commitment). However, what these fundamentally static accounts do not provide is answers to the question of how credibly constrained Leviathans emerge, and how the two processes – of the ac-cumulation of power and the constraining of power – interact over time. We make a theoretical contribution by presenting a dynamic model of the state which shows that the sequencing of these two processes lead to fundamentally different outcomes. Specifically, we argue that while credible enforcement before credible commitment (i.e. democratizing after the state has become strong) can lead to a constrained Leviathan, credible commitment before credible enforcement (i.e. democratizing before the state has become strong) cannot. We illustrate the theoretical argument with two contrasting case studies of Ireland and Sweden. Our conclusions suggest that what matters for beneficial social outcomes is not democracy per se, but the timing of democracy in state development.
Expert Survey on the Quality of Government in Russia’s Regions: A Report
(2015-10) Nistotskaya, Marina; Khakhunova, Anna; Dahlström, Carl; QoG Institute
Governing Corporate Accountability: Extraterritoriality and the Effectiveness of NCP Mediation
(2025-03) Sund, Mirja; Nistotskaya, Marina; The Quality of Governmen Institute
As dominant actors in a globalised economy, multinational corporations can evade responsibility for labour and human rights violations and other misconduct within their own operations, those of their clients, or across supply chains. To address this challenge, OECD governments established the Guideline for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, aiming to promote corporate responsibility and mitigate adverse impacts. The OECD Guidelines’ enforcement mechanism is the non-judicial system of National Contact Points (NCPs), which mediates disputes between corporations and affected parties. Notably, NCPs can accept complaints concerning corporate conduct beyond their own jurisdiction, raising questions about whether extraterritorial cases are resolved as effectively as domestic ones. This paper examines the impact of extraterritoriality on NCP effectiveness, understood as the likelihood of mediation reaching an agreement, using a mixed-method approach. A logistic regression analysis of 233 NCP cases (2000–2022) finds that extraterritorial cases are less likely to result in an agreement. A comparative case study further reveals that extraterritoriality may weaken NCP effectiveness both directly, through the complexity of evidence—its availability and interpretability—and indirectly, via intercultural and language challenges that affect trust between parties. These findings underscore the need to strengthen NCP capacity to address the unique challenges of mediating transnational disputes.
Individual-Level Determinants of Corruption Perception in Five Areas of Public Life in Sweden Evidence from 2022 SOM Survey
(2024-11) Hallin, Hampus; Nistotskaya, Marina; The Quality of Government Institute (QoG)
Corruption perceptions are not only shared social norms shaped by societal dynamics, but they also reflections of individual experiences, values, and viewpoints. This study examines the relationship between a set of individual- and community-level factors and perceptions of corruption, using the data from a nationwide survey in Sweden. We analyze the drivers of corruption perceptions among Swedish citizens across five key areas of public life: politicians, civil servants, police, public healthcare, and foreign aid. Our findings reveals that Swedish citizens hold sector specific perceptions of corruption – rather than singular and unified – with the foreign aid perceived as the most corrupt sector and healthcare as the least corrupt. Only a few factors exhibit a statistically significant impact on corruption perception across all five areas, reinforcing our main finding that there are varieties of corruption perceptions rather than a singular, unified view of corruption in the public sector
Is the quality of the outsourced public services contingent on the quality of bureaucracy?
(2016-07) Dahlström, Carl; Nistotskaya, Marina; Tyrberg, Maria; QoG Institute
Outsourced public services make up about half of the total public service delivery in OECD countries today and have increased dramatically over time. Reformers expected that outsourcing would both cut costs and increase quality through rather basic market logic. This paper investigates the impact of outsourcing on one of the fundamental goals of outsourcing – the quality of services. It draws on literature that suggests that markets for public services might often be dysfunctional, especially for complex goods, where highly incomplete contracts are rule, and that we should in fact expect a negative effect of outsourcing on service quality. However, we argue that potential negative consequences can be counter-acted, at least to some extent, with more competent and motivated personnel on the buyer’s side, as contracts will probably be better and monitoring more efficient, which will lessen the room for the vendor’s opportunistic behavior. We test our theoretical predictions empirically using data on the extent of outsourcing, satisfaction with the quality of service and education and pay of the municipal employees in Swedish municipalities. Our analyses show that outsourcing and citizen’s satisfaction with service are indeed negatively correlated, but that the magnitude of this association is lower in municipalities with better educated and better paid staff. We interpret this as supporting the idea that outsourcing is contingent on bureaucratic quality.
Land Property Rights, Cadasters and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Panel 1000-2015 CE
(University of Gothenburg, 2021-03) D´Arcy, Michelle; Nistotskaya, Marina; Olsson, Ola; Department of Economics
Since the transition to agricultural production, property rights to land have been a key institution for economic development. Clearly defined land rights provide economic agents with increased access to credit, secure returns on investment, free up resources used to defend one's land rights, and facilitate land market transactions. Formalized land records also strengthen governments' capacity to tax land-owners. Despite a large body of extant micro-level empirical studies, macro-level research on the evolution of formal rights to land, and their importance for economic growth, has so far been lacking. In this paper, we present a novel data set on the emergence of state-administered cadasters (i.e. centralized land records) for 159 countries over the last millennium. We also analyze empirically the association between the development of cadastral institutions and long-run economic growth in a panel of countries. Our findings demonstrate a substantive positive effect of the introduction of cadasters on modern per capita income levels, supporting theoretical conjectures that states with more formalized property rights to land should experience higher levels of economic growth.
Land Property Rights, Cadasters and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Panel 1000-2015 CE
(2021-03) D’Arcy, Michelle; Nistotskaya, Marina; Olsson, Ola; The Quality of Government institute
Since the transition to agricultural production, property rights to land have been a key institution for economic development. Clearly defined land rights provide economic agents with increased access to credit, secure returns on investment, free up resources used to defend one’s land rights, and facilitate land market transactions. Formalized land records also strengthen governments’ capacity to tax land-owners. Despite a large body of extant micro-level empirical studies, macro-level research on the evolution of formal rights to land, and their importance for economic growth, has so far been lacking. In this paper, we present a novel data set on the emergence of state-administered cadasters (i.e. centralized land records) for 159 countries over the last millennium. We also analyze empirically the association between the development of cadastral institutions and long-run economic growth in a panel of countries. Our findings demonstrate a substantive positive effect of the introduction of cadasters on modern per capita income levels, supporting theoretical conjectures that states with more formalized property rights to land should experience higher levels of economic growth.
Land Property Rights, Cadasters and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Panel 1000-2015 CE
(2021) D’Arcy, Michelle; Nistotskaya, Marina; Olsson, Ola; QoG The Quality of Government Institute
Since the transition to agricultural production, property rights to land have been a key institution for economic development. Clearly defined land rights provide economic agents with increased access to credit, secure returns on investment, free up resources used to defend one’s land rights, and facilitate land market transactions. Formalized land records also strengthen governments’ capacity to tax land-owners. Despite a large body of extant micro-level empirical studies, macro-level research on the evolution of formal rights to land, and their importance for economic growth, has so far been lacking. In this paper, we present a novel data set on the emergence of state-administered cadasters (i.e. centralized land records) for 159 countries over the last millennium. We also analyze empirically the association between the development of cadastral institutions and long-run economic growth in a panel of countries. Our findings demonstrate a substantive positive effect of the introduction of cadasters on modern per capita income levels, supporting theoretical conjectures that states with more formalized property rights to land should experience higher levels of economic growth.
Legal Clarity and Impartiality: A Global Experimental Study of Consistency in Bureaucratic Decision Making
(2025-08) Nilsson, Joakim; Nistotskaya, Marina; The Quality of Government Institute
The language used in legal texts is often ambiguous, hindering bureaucrats’ ability to understand, interpret, and apply the law consistently, and thereby threatening impartiality. While the Quality of Government (QoG) literature emphasizes the importance of impartiality, it overlooks how the clarity of legal language shapes this principle in practice. This paper bridges two bodies of scholarship: the QoG literature and legal studies that highlight the role of language clarity in law comprehension but haven’t considered its implica tions for bureaucratic decision-making. We advance the argument that language clarity fosters impartiality by enabling more consistent application of the law. To test this claim, we conducted an online survey ex periment with 900 current and former government officials from 33 countries. Participants were randomly assigned to resolve a case – based on a real-life scenario – in which the legal provision was presented in either ambiguous or clearer language. The results show that exposure to ambiguous wording reduced con sistently in the application of the law, whereas clear language fostered greater judgment consistency. These results call for a revision of the prevailing conceptualization of high QoG – from a mere absence of factors not “stipulated in the policy or the law” to also include the clarity with which laws are formulated. The paper underscores the practical significance of legal drafting for public sector performance.
Marketization and the Quality of Residential Elderly Care in Sweden
(2018-11) Broms, Rasmus; Dahlström, Carl; Nistotskaya, Marina; QoG Institute
Against a backdrop of increased levels of marketization of welfare services in OECD countries, this article aims to shed light on the separate effects of private ownership and competition on service quality. Using residential elderly care in Sweden as our case, we leverage unique panel data of ownership and competition against a set of indicators, pertaining to the structure, process and outcome dimensions of care quality. The main finding of our analyses is that competition does surprisingly little for quality: private entrepreneurs perform neither better nor worse under stiff competition and the quality of care is approximately the same in those nursing homes that are exposed to competition from private actors as in those that are not.
Provider Ownership and Service Quality: Evidence from Swedish Residential Care Homes
(2021-09) Broms, Rasmus; Dahlström, Carl; Nistotskaya, Marina; The Quality of Government institute
The provision of social services by private providers is widespread in OECD countries, but the jury is still out on whether marketization has improved service quality. This paper seeks to nuance existing debate by examining difference in service quality between different types of pri- vate providers. We argue that different forms of private ownership are associated with varying intensity of incentives for profit maximization, ultimately affecting the quality of service provi- sion. Using residential elder care homes in Sweden as our universe of cases, we leverage novel panel data capturing the ownership of the providers that operate nursing homes against a set of indicators pertaining to the facility-level service quality. The results suggest that providers with high-powered incentives to make profit, such as those owned by private equity firms and pub- licly traded companies, consistently deliver lower-quality care, compared with ordinary private companies and non-profit organizations.
Public Bureaucracy and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Russia’s Region
(2018-12) Nistotskaya, Marina; Khakhunova, Anna; QoG Institute
The paper examines government-business relationships by focusing on the effect of the organizational design of public bureaucracies on entrepreneurship in Russia. Using novel data from an expert survey on bureaucratic structures across a large sample of Russia’s primary administrative units, we find that higher rates of merit-based employment to regional bureaucracies and lower rates of “at will” dismissals are positively associated with lower investment risk and higher entrepreneurship rates. This is conditional on a number of socio-economic factors, and robust to alternative specifications.
State Capacity, Democracy and Public Good Production: The case of Child Mortality
(2018-12) Nistotskaya, Marina; D’Arcy, Michelle; QoG Institute
The paper examines government-business relationships by focusing on the effect of the organizational design of public bureaucracies on entrepreneurship in Russia. Using novel data from an expert survey on bureaucratic structures across a large sample of Russia’s primary administrative units, we find that higher rates of merit-based employment to regional bureaucracies and lower rates of “at will” dismissals are positively associated with lower investment risk and higher entrepreneurship rates. This is conditional on a number of socio-economic factors, and robust to alternative specifications.
State First, Then Democracy: Using Cadastral Records to Explain Governmental Performance
(2015) D'Arcy, Michelle; Nistotskaya, Marina; QoG Institute
Structural Characteristics of Long-Term Care Facilities for Elderly and COVID-19 Outcomes: A Systematic Literature Review
(2024-09) Nistotskaya, Marina; Dahlström, Carl; The Quality of Government Institute (QoG)
In many countries, elder citizens residing in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) were disproportionately affected by the SARS-Cov-2. However, The risk of contracting the virus, the incidence of infection, and mortality rates varied greatly between different facilities. This variation has motivated a growing literature examining the association between structural characteristics of LTCFs and COVID-19 outcomes. This paper present the findings of a rapid review of empirical studies investigating the link between ownership status, facility size and staffing, on the one hand, characteristics with COVID-19 outcomes among LTCFs, on the other. The reviewed literature is characterised by the lack of consensus. The review reveals a lack of consensus in the literature. Variation in COVID-19 outcomes is not systematically linked to ownership type, and factors related to facility size and staffing characteristics also show inconsistent associations with the presence of infection cases, infection rates, and mortality
The Early Modern Origins of Contemporary European Tax Systems
(2016-03) DÁrcy, Michelle; Nistotskaya, Marina; QoG Institute
What explains variation in tax outcomes? Many studies emphasize the role played by institutions, focusing on those of relatively recent times. We argue that contemporary tax systems have deeper institutional origins in the early modern period when states undertook reforms to centralize and rationalize taxation. We argue that the varying outcomes of these reforms map onto contemporary tax outcomes through the mechanisms of state capacity and social norms. Where states succeeded in introducing more comprehensive reforms they developed higher capacity to extract more tax, more equitably, and developing direct fiscal contracts with social groups below elites, fostering norms of trust. We test our argument using the extent of cadastral registration of land in the early modern period. We find that on average countries where reforms were more extensive have higher tax revenues, state capacity and trust in state authorities today than countries with limited early modern tax reforms.
The Quality of Government Expert Survey 2020 (Wave III): Report
(2021-03) Nistotskaya, Marina; Dahlberg, Stefan; Dahlström, Carl; Sundström, Aksel; Axelsson, Sofia; Mert Dalli, Cem; Alvarado Pachon, Natalia; The Quality of Government institute
The Quality of Government Expert Survey (QoG Expert Survey) is a research project aimed at documenting the organizational design of public bureaucracies and bureaucratic behavior in countries around the world. This report documents the design and implementation of the third wave of the QoG Expert Survey, and initial analysis of the new data. The QoG Expert Survey 2020 produced ten country-level indicators, pertaining to bureaucratic structure (meritocratic re- cruitment, security of tenure, closedness) and bureaucratic behavior (political interference into day-to-day bureaucratic decision-making and impartiality). The data is based on the assessments of more than 550 experts, carefully selected for their contextual subject-matter knowledge. The experts took part in the research pro bono. The main innovation of the third wave is the use of anchoring vignettes and Item-Response Theory (IRT)-based aggregation techniques to produce point estimates that account and adjust for systematic differences in expert subjective assess- ments and variation in expert reliability. The resulting indicators are internally coherent and also correlate well with other well-established measures for the same concepts. The strength of the association between the data from 2020 and the two previous waves of the survey suggests that the data is likely to measure the same underling phenomena, while offering enough variability over time to be used in time-series analysis.
The Quality of Government Expert Survey 2020 (Wave III): Report
(2021) Nistotskaya, Marina; Dahlberg, Stefan; Dahlström, Carl; Sundström, Aksel; Axelsson, Sofia; Dalli, Cem Mert; Alvarado Pachon, Natalia; QoG The Quality of Government Institute
The Quality of Government Expert Survey (QoG Expert Survey) is a research project aimed at documenting the organizational design of public bureaucracies and bureaucratic behavior in countries around the world. This report documents the design and implementation of the third wave of the QoG Expert Survey, and initial analysis of the new data. The QoG Expert Survey 2020 produced ten country-level indicators, pertaining to bureaucratic structure (meritocratic re- cruitment, security of tenure, closedness) and bureaucratic behavior (political interference into day-to-day bureaucratic decision-making and impartiality). The data is based on the assessments of more than 550 experts, carefully selected for their contextual subject-matter knowledge. The experts took part in the research pro bono. The main innovation of the third wave is the use of anchoring vignettes and Item-Response Theory (IRT)-based aggregation techniques to produce point estimates that account and adjust for systematic differences in expert subjective assess- ments and variation in expert reliability. The resulting indicators are internally coherent and also correlate well with other well-established measures for the same concepts. The strength of the association between the data from 2020 and the two previous waves of the survey suggests that the data is likely to measure the same underling phenomena, while offering enough variability over time to be used in time-series analysis.