Civil Service Rules and Policy Choices: Evidence from US State Governments
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 6,
no. 2, May 2014
(pp. 338-80)
Abstract
This paper studies the policy impact of civil service regulations, exploiting reforms undertaken by US state governments throughout the twentieth century. These reforms replaced political patronage with a civil service recruited based on merit and protected from politics. I find that state politicians respond to these changes by spending relatively less through the reformed state-level bureaucracies. Instead, they allocate more funds to lower level governments. The reallocation of expenditures leads to reduced long-term investment by state governments.Citation
Ujhelyi, Gergely. 2014. "Civil Service Rules and Policy Choices: Evidence from US State Governments." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6 (2): 338-80. DOI: 10.1257/pol.6.2.338Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- H72 State and Local Budget and Expenditures
- H77 Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
- H79 State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations: Other
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