Social Proximity and Bureaucrat Performance: Evidence from India

Guo Xu, Marianne Bertrand and Robin Burgess

No 25389, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using exogenous variation in social proximity generated by an allocation rule, we find that bureaucrats assigned to their home states are perceived to be more corrupt and less able to withstand illegitimate political pressure. Despite this, we observe that home officers are more likely to be promoted in the later stages of their careers. To understand this dissonance between performance and promotion we show that incoming Chief Ministers preferentially promote home officers that come from the same home district. Taken together, our results suggest that social proximity hampers bureaucrat performance by facilitating political capture and corruption.

JEL-codes: J45 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
Note: DEV LS POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Social Proximity and Bureaucrat Performance: Evidence from India (2019)
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