Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations

Emanuele Colonnelli, Mounu Prem and Edoardo Teso

American Economic Review, 2020, vol. 110, issue 10, 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.

JEL-codes: D72 D73 J45 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181491 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E118165V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181491.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181491.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations (2019)
Working Paper: Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations (2019)
Working Paper: Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:10:p:3071-99

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20181491

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().