Dishonesty and Public Employment

Guillermo Cruces (), Martín Rossi and Ernesto Schargrodsky ()
Additional contact information
Guillermo Cruces: University of Nottingham, CEDLAS-FCE-UNLP, and CONICET
Ernesto Schargrodsky: Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, CAF, and CONICET

No 168, Working Papers from Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia

Abstract: We exploit a natural experiment to study the causal link between dishonest behavior and public employment. When military conscription was mandatory in Argentina, eligibility was determined by both a lottery and a medical examination. To avoid conscription, individuals at risk of being drafted had strong incentives to cheat in their medical examination. These incentives varied with the lottery number. Exploiting this exogenous variation, we first present evidence of cheating in medical examinations. We then show that individuals with a higher probability of having cheated in health checks exhibit a higher propensity to occupy non-meritocratic public sector jobs later in life.

Keywords: Conscription; public employment; state capacities; dishonesty; impressionable years (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 J45 K42 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2023-11, Revised 2023-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lam, nep-law and nep-lma
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https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc168.pdf First version, November 2023 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Dishonesty and Public Employment (2023)
Working Paper: Dishonesty and Public Employment (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sad:wpaper:168

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