Bureaucratic competence and procurement outcomes

To what extent does a more competent public workforce contribute to better economic outcomes? We analyze this question in the context of the US federal procurement by combining data on office-level competencies, federal workforce characteristics, and procurement performance. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find that the effects of competence heterogeneity across bureaus are quantitatively important: if all federal bureaus were to obtain NASA's high level of competence (corresponding to the top 10 percent of competence), delays in contract execution would decline by 7.2 million days and price renegotiations would drop by $13.5 billion over the 2010-2015 period analyzed. Cooperation within the office appears to be a key driver of the findings.