15:00 - 16:40
P4
Room:
Room: Club B
Panel Session 4
Hector Bahamonde - Electoral Risk and Vote Buying, Introducing Prospect Theory in the Experimental Study of Clientelism
Tinghua Yu - Political Competition and Bureaucratic Quality
Anderson Frey - When do Parties Recruit Bureaucrats? Evidence from Brazil
Tiago Peterlevitz - Patronage Contracting
Olga Gasparyan - Local Resource Allocation Choices: Evidence from Topic Models of Russian P
Political Competition and Bureaucratic Quality
P4-2
Presented by: Tinghua Yu
Tinghua Yu 1, Tara Slough 2
1 Birkbeck, University of London
2 New York University
How does the entrenchment of elected politicians affect the incentives and selection of bureaucrats? We examine this question both theoretically and empirically. We develop an accountability model between an elected politician and a bureaucrat in which an election occurs after the first period, introducing possible turnover of the incumbent politician. In this framework, entrenchment refers to the probability that the incumbent wins the election to stay in power into the second period. We derive two predictions that we test empirically. First, as the incumbent's entrenchment increases, the bureaucrat exerts more effort, improving performance. Second, the entrenchment of the incumbent has a non-monotonic effect on selection of high quality bureaucrats. We test these implications in the context of Brazilian municipal government. We measure entrenchment in terms of the strength of political dynasties in municipal administration. We then use school performance data and rich personnel data on school administrators and teachers to measure bureaucratic performance and quality, respectively, to test these predictions. Our study provides insights into the dynamic effects of political turnover on public goods provision and bureaucratic quality.