Government capacity can unlock supply constraints and advance affordability

Gayer opened the discussion by distinguishing between abundance as a policy goal and state capacity as an institutional constraint.

“For me, abundance is very much a focus on the supply side,” Gayer said, describing efforts to reduce unnecessary barriers that limit what the economy can produce. State capacity, by contrast, is “a broader suite of issues of like, how do you actually deliver on policy intentions.”

The distinction matters, Gayer argued, because many abundance-oriented reforms quietly depend on institutions that can execute them. While expanding supply is essential, it does little on its own if public agencies lack the ability to implement, manage, and adapt policy over time.

Across supply-related policy areas and beyond, panelists emphasized the importance of building evidence on what works, testing and learning over time, and remaining nimble enough to adapt as conditions evolve.

Drawing on decades of experience across federal, state, and local government, Gordon described a familiar pattern in public policy: confidence at the design stage followed by disappointment at delivery.

From education reforms to social programs and benefits administration, Gordon pointed to rigid program rules, long timelines, and limited in-house capacity as recurring obstacles. In many states, governments rely heavily on outside vendors to run complex systems, paying high costs while retaining little ability to oversee or adapt those systems once they are in place.

“Why did education or teacher reforms go sideways? It was: we had figured it all out, and we were going to deliver it, and we told everyone how to do it, and we were going to evaluate it in five years,” he said. “[But] that is not how you deploy difficult things effectively. We need a more agile, more effective civil service. We need a better ability to manage technology, and we need to clear out the procedures that make things always take too long, go too slowly and be insufficiently responsive.”

These challenges, Gordon emphasized, are not merely questions of policy design. They are institutional and the potential solutions are strikingly under-researched. Questions about civil service hiring, retention, and organizational design, he noted, have profound implications for cost and performance, yet remain thinly studied relative to their importance.

Gordon suggested a coordinated research agenda could accelerate knowledge of what works in boosting state capacity to effectively deliver on policy goals.

Pahlka argued that improving outcomes requires more than better policy ideas. “If your better policies don’t turn into outcomes for people,” she said, “we’re in a very scary place.” The solution, she suggested, lies in rethinking the basic operating model of government.

That includes civil service systems capable of attracting and retaining skilled staff, procurement processes suited to modern technology, and institutional cultures that prioritize learning over compliance. Pahlka emphasized that many barriers to better performance are not written into law, but instead persist through informal practices and assumptions about how government must operate.

As an example, she described how agencies continue to rely on fax machines because of what she called “folk law.”

“The reality is that the law doesn’t actually exist,” Pahlka said. Addressing these kinds of barriers, she argued, requires better tools and a willingness to examine how decisions are actually made in practice.

Throughout the discussion, panelists returned to the role of research in bridging ideas and action, particularly the need for evidence that can guide implementation and inform policy decisions at the state level. While economists and policy scholars have produced extensive work on allocation and incentives, the mechanics of implementation, how programs are staffed, managed, and delivered, have received far less attention.

Wilkinson emphasized that this gap is especially consequential at the state level. A great deal of actual policy implementation, he noted, occurs at the state level, where research can meaningfully inform decisions about institutional design and delivery. Understanding where capacity constraints are most binding, and which reforms offer the greatest leverage, is critical to turning policy intentions into real-world impact.

States, the panelists suggested, also present an opportunity. As laboratories for implementation, they can test different approaches to hiring, procurement, and program design, generating evidence that informs broader policy debates and helps sustain momentum across political contexts. Panelists mentioned recent work by Zachary Liscow, an economist and professor at Yale Law School who organized the conference, as a good example of how economists and other researchers can help study important state capacity questions. Liscow’s research gave states actionable steps they can take to bring down the cost of highway projects.

Together, the panelists underscored a shared message: the success of the ‘abundance agenda’ will ultimately be judged not by the elegance of its ideas, but by whether governments can deliver on them. Moving from research to results requires sustained attention to the institutions that shape policy implementation and a commitment to making those institutions work better.

The panel builds on a growing body of work focused on state capacity and supply issues often referred to as ‘abundance.’ In recent years, the center has supported influential research on infrastructure costs, permitting reform, and public sector capacity, while also working directly with state partners to translate evidence into practice.

As part of this agenda, the Tobin Center is bringing together policymakers, researchers, and philanthropic leaders to help build a more coordinated research agenda on abundance and state capacity, focused on producing evidence that policymakers can use to design, implement, and refine reforms in practice.

The Law of Abundance Conference continued this effort by bringing together scholars and practitioners to explore how research can better inform policy design and delivery, and how governments can build the institutional capacity needed to achieve concrete results.