Civil Service Rules and Policy Choices: Evidence from US State Governments

Ujhelyi, Gergely

doi:10.1257/pol.6.2.338

Cited by 29 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…This shift was underlain by many major social changes, including the Industrial and the French Revolutions, economic development, and political democratization. In the United States, the civil service system was gradually reformed across 100 years (Ujhelyi (2014)). This challenge is less critical in the case of the abrupt abolition of the exam system in China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elite Recruitment and Political Stability: The Impact of the Abolition of China's Civil Service Exam

2016

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APPENDIX A.1. Results on the Party IdentificationWE EXPLORE PARTY IDENTIFICATION of the parliament members in 1912 as another check on ideology. Compared with the other parties-the Republican Party (Kunghotang) and the Democratic Party (Minzhutang)-the KMT (Kuomintang literally means "Chinese Nationalist Party") was known to be more radical and more pro-redistribution (Chang (1985)). In contrast, the party ideology of the Kunghotang was based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, whereas the Minzhutang emphasized that stability was their primary goal.We link quotas per capita to the parliament members' party identification in 1912, using the following cross-sectional specification:where KMT i p is a dummy indicating whether a party member i belongs to the Kuomintang or not.The results are presented in columns (1)- (2) in Table A.V. Among the 703 party members for whom we can identify the origins and ages, 434 were identified with the KMT. Based on the individual-level information, we do not find any significant impact of quotas per capita on party identification. However, consistent with the hypothesis that the KMT was more radical, we find that younger people were more likely to identify themselves as KMT members.Columns (3)- (8) report the results using prefecture-level information to examine the link between the quotas and the number of party members. As is shown, quotas per capita increased the party member probability for both the KMT and the other parties. This finding is expected because more revolutionaries should be associated with a higher probability of party members after the success of the revolution. However, the magnitudes of the impacts for the KMT and the other parties are not significantly different. Consistent with the placebo test using the Boxer Rebellion, the finding on party identification once

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elite Recruitment and Political Stability: The Impact of the Abolition of China's Civil Service Exam

2016

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“…Other studies of patronage includeFolke et al (2011) andUjhelyi (2014), which exploit the different timing of the introduction of civil service systems across U.S. states to study its impact on incumbents' re-election probability and allocation of government spending, respectively. The theoretical literature on patronage has emphasized how redistribution through public sector jobs emerges as a credible way of rewarding clients since it solves the political-commitment problem between the client and the patron(Robinson and Verdier, 2013) Acemoglu et al (2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations

Colonnelli

Prem

Teso

2020

American Economic Review

191

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In all modern bureaucracies, politicians retain some discretion in public employment decisions, which may lead to frictions in the selection process if political connections substitute for individual competence. Relying on detailed matched employer-employee data on the universe of public employees in Brazil over 1997–2014, and on a regression discontinuity design in close electoral races, we establish three main findings. First, political connections are a key and quantitatively large determinant of employment in public organizations, for both bureaucrats and frontline providers. Second, patronage is an important mechanism behind this result. Third, political considerations lead to the selection of less competent individuals. (JEL D72, D73, J45, O17)

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“…This paper also contributes to a literature on the welfare effects of civil service protections that is primarily comprised of informal theoretical and empirical studies. Notable recent papers by Folke, Hirano, and Snyder () and Ujhelyi () empirically examine the effect of civil service on policy and political outcomes. Rauch () and Rauch and Evans () are more closely related to my outcome of interest, bureaucratic performance.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Civil service reform, self‐selection, and bureaucratic performance

Gibbs

2020

Economics & Politics

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I use a formal model to analyze the effect of civil service protections on bureaucratic performance. In a two-period model, a public manager observes a bureaucrat's actions for a period and decides whether to retain or attempt to remove the bureaucrat. Bureaucrats vary in terms of their intrinsic motivation and choose between careers in government or the private sector. I show that bureaucratic performance is greater in any separating equilibrium in which motivated bureaucrats choose government than in all equilibria in which they do not. Stronger civil service protections reduce the amount of effort that motivated bureaucrats must exert to distinguish themselves from their unmotivated peers in order to ensure retention. This strengthens incentives for motivated bureaucrats to choose careers in government.Stronger civil service protections, however, also reduce the ability of public managers to remove unmotivated bureaucrats. These competing effects yield a non-monotonic and discontinuous relationship between civil service protections and bureaucratic performance. I use the model to analyze recent reforms to U.S. state and federal personnel management that have significantly rolled back traditional job protections.

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Civil Service Rules and Policy Choices: Evidence from US State Governments

Cited by 29 publications

References 34 publications

Elite Recruitment and Political Stability: The Impact of the Abolition of China's Civil Service Exam

Elite Recruitment and Political Stability: The Impact of the Abolition of China's Civil Service Exam

Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations

Civil service reform, self‐selection, and bureaucratic performance

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