American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations
American Economic Review
vol. 110,
no. 10, October 2020
(pp. 3071–99)
Abstract
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.Citation
Colonnelli, Emanuele, Mounu Prem, and Edoardo Teso. 2020. "Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations." American Economic Review, 110 (10): 3071–99. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20181491Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- J45 Public Sector Labor Markets
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements