Suchergebnisse

I combine newly digitized personnel and public finance data from the British colonial administration for the period 1854–1966 to study how patronage affects the promotion and incentives of governors. Governors are more likely to be promoted to higher salaried colonies when connected to their superior during the period of patronage. Once allocated, they provide more tax exemptions, raise less revenue, and invest less. The promotion and performance gaps disappear after the abolition of patronage appointments. Patronage therefore distorts the allocation of public sector positions and reduces the incentives of favored bureaucrats to perform. (JEL D73, F54, H83, J45, M51, N43, N44)

We use newly digitized records from the post office to study the effects of strengthened state capacity between 1875 and 1901. Exploiting the implementation of the Pendleton Act—a landmark statute that shielded bureaucrats from political interference—across US cities over two waves, we find that civil service reform reduced postal delivery errors and increased productivity. These improvements were most pronounced during election years when the reform dampened bureaucratic turnover. We provide suggestive evidence that reformed cities witnessed declining local partisan newspapers. Separating politics from administration, therefore, not only improved state effectiveness but also weakened the role of local politics. (JEL D24, D73, H83, J45, L82, L87, N41)

We link personnel records of the federal civil service to census data for 1907-1921 to study the segregation of the civil service by race under President Woodrow Wilson. Using a difference-indifferences design to compare the black-white wage gap around Wilson's presidential transition, we find that the introduction of employment segregation increased the black wage penalty by 7 percentage points. This gap increases over time and is driven by a reallocation of already-serving black civil servants to lower paid positions. Our results thus document significant costs borne by minorities during a unique episode of state-sanctioned discrimination.

We address the pitfalls of averaging by exploiting the longitudinal variation in aid to identify sudden and sharp increases in aid flows. Focusing on specific events, we test if aid accelerations correspond to policies and shocks in the recipient country. For a large sample of 145 recipient countries and 33 donors from 1960- 2007, we find that positive regime changes and wars are significant predictors of aid accelerations. Disaggregating aid flows by donors, we find indicative evidence for competing allocation rules, particularly among European donors. We argue that drivers of aid accelerations differ from drivers of average aid flows - a distinction that can reconcile some of the ambiguous empirical results in the aid literature. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]

We address the pitfalls of averaging by exploiting the longitudinal variation in aid to identify sudden and sharp increases in aid flows. Focusing on specific events, we test if aid accelerations correspond to policies and shocks in the recipient country. For a large sample of 145 recipient countries and 33 donors from 1960- 2007, we find that positive regime changes and wars are significant predictors of aid accelerations. Disaggregating aid flows by donors, we find indicative evidence for competing allocation rules, particularly among European donors. We argue that drivers of aid accelerations differ from drivers of average aid flows - a distinction that can reconcile some of the ambiguous empirical results in the aid literature.

Zum 20. Jubiläum des Human Development Index (HDI) haben die Vereinten Nationen einen Index für menschliche Entwicklung veröffentlicht, der nun auch Ungleichheit berücksichtigt (IHDI). Länder mit großen sozialen Disparitäten, insbesondere mittel- und südamerikanische Staaten, schneiden dabei deutlich schlechter ab als nach dem bisherigen Messkonzept. Auch wenn sich die Rangfolge über alle Länder betrachtet nicht grundlegend ändert, gewährt der erweiterte Index neue Einsichten in die menschliche Entwicklung und dürfte zu einer wichtigen Informationsquelle für Politik und Forschung werden.