Bureaucrats and Politicians: Electoral Competition and Dynamic Incentives

Anusha Nath
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Anusha Nath: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

No 896, 2018 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: This paper shows that electoral competition can adversely impact bureaucratic performance. Politicians use promise of favorable future promotions to incentivize career bureaucrats. Higher competition results in lower probability of re-election; making promises less credible and resulting in worse performance. Constructing a unique dataset from India based on bureaucrats’ work histories and using a novel identification strategy, results show that bureaucrats perform better close to their pre-determined promotion screening dates. Across politicians, the same bureaucrat performs better for incumbents more likely to be in office during screening. Results hold when effects of exogenously changing re-election probabilities are examined within bureaucrat-politician pairs.

Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:red:sed018:896

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