Measuring Meritocracy in the Public Sector in Europe: a New National and Sub-National Indicator

Charron, Nicholas; Dahlström, Carl; Lapuente, Víctor

doi:10.1007/s10610-016-9307-0

Cited by 25 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Their data have been aggregated in order to match the regional level of the EQI sample. The final indicator of institutional quality measures the extent to which civil servants rate their place of employment as meritocratic (as opposed to clientelist) at the regional level in EU countries, from 2013 (Charron, Dahlström, & Lapuente, 2016).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring quality of government in EU regions across space and time

Charron

Lapuente

Annoni

2019

Papers in Regional Science

Self Cite

109

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A wave of recent cross‐national research has pointed to the positive consequences for countries with high levels of “quality of government” (QoG), broadly defined, such as corruption, impartiality, and quality of public services. Yet the question of how QoG varies at the sub‐national level is still widely overlooked, in particular with measures that are available over time. To address it, we present the third round of data from the regional European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey corruption (D73), Europe (N44) governance (H11); sub‐national (R50), time series (C22), collected in 2017 and built upon the opinions of 78,000 respondents in 193 regions from 21 European countries. The data provides several contributions to the literature. First, while the majority of QoG‐type indices rely on expert assessments, the EQI relies on the assessments of citizens, who are the on‐the‐ground consumers of public services. Second, the data begins to show trends on QoG variation over time, as well as across European regions. Consequently, this data is the most comprehensive sub‐national data to date; mapping of QoG within and across EU countries over the past decade. Building on previous rounds of data collected in 2010 and 2013, the 2017 EQI, which is published free for scholarly use, builds on both perceptions and experiences of citizens in public service areas such as health care, education, and law enforcement. This paper presents the results of the latest survey, improved with respect to the previous ones, discussion of trends across space and over time, as well as interesting avenues for future research that we detect across European regions.

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring quality of government in EU regions across space and time

Charron

Lapuente

Annoni

2019

Papers in Regional Science

Self Cite

109

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“…Such criticisms mainly come from the New Public Management (NPM) and National Performance Review (NPR) perspectives (Damanpour, 1996;Dougherty & Corse, 1995;Osborne & Gaebler, 1992;Osborne & Plastrik, 1997;Peters, 2010;Wynen & Verhoest, 2016). However, results of recent empirical studies show that Weber's model of public bureaucracy (i.e., politically neutral decision making and impartial exercise of public authority) plays a key role in various national level indicators such as levels of corruption, socioeconomic development, entrepreneurship, scientific productivity, and policy implementation, which may also be associated with levels of innovative activity (e.g., Aucoin, 2012;Bor€ ang, Nistotskaya, & Xezonakis, 2017;Charron, Dahlstr€ om, & Lapuente, 2016;Cornell, 2014;Cornell & Grimes, 2015;Dahlstr€ om & Lapuente, 2017;Evans & Rauch, 1999; Fern andez-Carro & Lapuente-Gin e, 2016; Lodge & Gill, 2011;Nistotskaya & Cingolani, 2016;Rauch & Evans, 2000;Rothstein & Teorell, 2008). In addition, research shows that institutional quality matters for private investments in the public-private partnership market (Baker, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Association Between Administrative Characteristics and National Level Innovative Activity: Findings from a Cross-National Study

Suzuki

Demircioglu

2018

Public Performance & Management Review

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This study examines an association between two important and historical administrative characteristics of civil service systems (i.e., professional and impartial public administration) and national level innovation outputs. Scholars have examined the influence of macrolevel factors, such as the general level of human capital, culture, and social capital, on national rates of innovative activity. However, we still have limited understanding of the relationship between the administrative characteristics of government and national levels of innovative activity in a cross-national setting. This article hypothesizes that countries with highly professional and impartial public administration tend to have higher national level innovation outputs (i.e., knowledge and technology, creative outputs). From utilizing cross-national data from the Quality of Government Institute Expert Survey and Global Innovation Index from over 100 economies, findings show that national levels of innovation outputs are significantly higher in countries that have higher levels of professional and impartial public administration. The results suggest the importance of professional and impartial administration for national level innovative activity.

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“…The response rate was roughly 21%, a rate consistent with, or higher than, many other large telephone-administered surveys (Pew Research Center 2012). 4 More details about the survey are given in the appendix, available online, and in Charron, Dahlström, and Lapuente (2016).…”

Section: Meritocratic Career Incentives In the Public Sectormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We then use a 10-scale question asking what the respondent thinks is closest to her own view: "in the public sector, most people can succeed if they are willing to work hard" (1) or "hard work is no guarantee of success in the public sector for most people-it's more a matter of luck and connections" (10). (See Charron et al [2016] for a more detailed discussion about the measure. )…”

Section: Meritocratic Career Incentives In the Public Sectormentioning

confidence: 99%

Careers, Connections, and Corruption Risks: Investigating the Impact of Bureaucratic Meritocracy on Public Procurement Processes

Charron

Dahlström

Fazekas

et al. 2017

The Journal of Politics

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126

114

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Why do officials in some countries favor entrenched contractors, while others assign public contracts more impartially? This article emphasizes the important interplay between politics and bureaucracy. It suggests that corruption risks are lower when bureaucrats' careers do not depend on political connections but on their peers. We test this hypothesis with a novel measure of career incentives in the public sector-using a survey of more than 18,000 public sector employees in 212 European regions-and a new objective corruption risk measure including over 1.4 million procurement contracts. Both show a remarkable subnational variation across Europe. The study finds that corruption risks are indeed significantly lower where bureaucrats' career incentives exclusively follow professional criteria. In substantial terms, moving EU regions so that bureaucrats' merit and effort would matter as much as in, for example, Baden-Wüttemberg (90th percentile) could lead to a 13-20 billion Euro savings per year.

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Measuring Meritocracy in the Public Sector in Europe: a New National and Sub-National Indicator

Cited by 25 publications

References 31 publications

Measuring quality of government in EU regions across space and time

Measuring quality of government in EU regions across space and time

The Association Between Administrative Characteristics and National Level Innovative Activity: Findings from a Cross-National Study

Careers, Connections, and Corruption Risks: Investigating the Impact of Bureaucratic Meritocracy on Public Procurement Processes

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