Imported Institutions: Boon or Bane in the Developing World?

A substantial body of literature holds that imported institutions are inferior to their indigenous counterparts, and developing country civil service laws have frequently been invoked by way of illustration. Civil service laws that are adopted at the behest of foreign powers are at best likely to go unenforced, the literature implies, and at worst likely to hinder efforts to root out corruption and cronyism in the developing world. Are imported institutions really likely to bomb or backfire in this way? I address the question by examining qualitative and quantitative data on the labor ministry in the Dominican Republic and find little basis for concern. While the Dominicans reformed their personnel policies at the behest of their donors and trading partners in the 1990s, and did so under great duress, they have nonetheless taken ownership of the reforms, and thus boast an atypically meritocratic labor ministry today. The paper concludes by discussing the conditions under which imported institutions are more likely to succeed or fail.