followed by informal interactions with colleagues (19.6%) and then reports from the frontline (17.2%).

These responses indicate that the dominant form of information used for decision making in the Ethiopian public sector is in terms of knowledge transmitted or gained through personal experience, widely known as the ‘tacit’ knowledge of individuals. Together, information gained through the direct experience of the individual - from field visits or interacting with colleagues or citizens - is one of the top three sources of information collection for 90% of the officials in our data. Only 12.8% of officials state that they use management information systems (MIS) as their primary source of information. Field visits and informal interactions are 3 times more likely to be in the top 3 most important sources of information than MIS, and 10 times more likely than external media sources.<sup>17</sup> These findings for Ethiopia’s public service are consistent with wider findings from the World Development Report 2016 that highlighted how public officials across the developing world fail to capitalize on digital databases available to them.<sup>18</sup> This lack of use of MIS does not seem to be due to a lack of skills. Our survey asked the extent to which officials agreed with the statement, “I possess the necessary skills to make best use of the technology that is available to me.” Two-thirds of respondents stated that they ‘slightly’ or ‘strongly’ agreed with the statement. Similarly, education indicators explain less than 1% of the variation in the probability that officials state that they use informal interactions in their top 3 most important sources of information. The lack of use of MIS also does not seem to be due to variation in facilities such as hours of electricity an organization typically receives, the quality of the phone network or internet access. An aggregate index of the quality of facilities at the organizations we study also explains less than 1% of the variation in the likelihood of relying on tacit knowledge.<sup>19</sup> Rather, the culture of information use leans strongly towards a reliance on tacit knowledge.

# **3.3 Basic Descriptives on the Determinants of Information**

Given the importance of the tacit beliefs of bureaucrats measured by our survey, we now turn to an investigation of their determinants. Our data allows us to provide broad descriptive evidence on the

> 17The reliance on tacit knowledge is in contrast to the fact that many public officials believe relevant information is available from other sources. We asked officials how long it would take to receive statistical data as an input to their work from the relevant directorate, and the median response was 1 day (the mean was 1.8 days and the 90th percentile was 2 days). Averaging bureaucrat responses to the organization level, the 90th percentile slowest organization delivered the data within 3 days.

> 18Many public officials believe that the tacit information they have is sufficient for the successful implementation of their daily work. Our respondents stated that in 70.9% of the projects they worked on, “I have necessary information regarding the current state of service delivery in my jurisdiction/my area of work”. This was consistent across tiers (federal, 73.6%; regional, 72.9%; district, 69.4%), sectors (Agriculture, 71.1%; Education, 75.3%; Health, 74.3%; Revenue, 66.1%; Trade, 67.6%) and grades (Grades 1-5, 71.1%; Grades 6+, 70.7%).

> 19The index of facilities is an organization-level average of z-scores of the facilities questions asked to managers only: how many hours of electricity an organization receives per typical working day, the state of the phone network, the extent of internet access, the access staff have to computers, the access staff have to vehicles, and the staff’s ability to write memos/spreadsheets/powerpoint.

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