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The glittering prizes: career incentives and bureaucrat performance

Author

Listed:
  • Bertrand, Marianne
  • Burgess, Robin
  • Chawla, Arunish
  • Xu, Guo
Abstract
Bureaucracies are configured differently to private sector and political organizations. Across a wide range of civil services entry is competitive, promotion is constrained by seniority, jobs are for life and retirement occurs at a fixed age. This implies that older entering officers, who are less likely to attain the glittering prize of reaching the top of the bureaucracy before they retire, may be less motivated to exert effort. Using a nationwide stakeholder survey and rich administrative data on elite civil servants in India we provide evidence that: (i) officers who cannot reach the senior-most positions before they retire are perceived to be less effective and are more likely to be suspended and (ii) this effect is weakened by a reform that extends the retirement age. Together these results suggest that the career incentive of reaching the top of a public organization is a powerful determinant of bureaucrat performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertrand, Marianne & Burgess, Robin & Chawla, Arunish & Xu, Guo, 2020. "The glittering prizes: career incentives and bureaucrat performance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100808, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:100808
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/100808/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Benjamin Sahel & Antonio Scalia & Luana Zaccaria, 2021. "Career concerns and peer effects in institutional tournaments: Evidence from ECB reserve currency portfolios," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 47-73, March.
    3. Kalaj, Jozefina & Rogger, Daniel & Somani, Ravi, 2022. "Bureaucrat time-use: Evidence from a survey experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2023. "The political economy of public sector absence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    5. Li, Xun & Pan, Wensi & Xu, Gang, 2024. "A “leaner” government? The effect of China's anti-corruption campaign on the body weight and health of public sector employees," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 141-169.
    6. Chen, Qianmiao & Huang, Qingyang & Liu, Chang & Wang, Peng, 2022. "Career incentives of local leaders and crisis response: A case study of COVID-19 lockdowns in China," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Tom Nicholas, 2023. "Status and mortality: Is there a Whitehall effect in the United States?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1191-1230, November.
    8. Olivier Marie & Thomas Post & Zihan Ye & Xiaopeng Zou, 2024. "From Two Heads to One: The Short-Run Effects of the Recentralization of Political Power in Rural China," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 24-040/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Fuhai Hong & Dong Zhang, 2023. "Bureaucratic beliefs and law enforcement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 357-379, September.
    10. Jiafu An & Seth Armitage & Wenxuan Hou & Xianda Liu, 2020. "Do checks on bureaucrats improve firm value? Evidence from a natural experiment," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(5), pages 4821-4844, December.
    11. Dustan, Andrew & Hernandez-Agramonte, Juan Manuel & Maldonado, Stanislao, 2023. "Motivating bureaucrats with behavioral insights when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale field experiments in Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    12. Jiangnan Zeng & Qiyao Zhou & Dali Yang, 2023. "Estimating the Economic Impact of Intensifying Environmental Regulation in China," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 147-172, October.
    13. Philipp Barteska & Jay Euijung Lee, 2024. "Bureaucrats and the Korean export miracle," Discussion Papers 2024-11, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    14. Zhao, Da & Guo, Jingyuan & Yu, Shule & Yu, Litian, 2024. "Tradeoff between local protection and public sector performance: Lessons from judicial fiscal centralization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 254-278.
    15. Trong‐Anh Trinh & Simon Feeny, 2024. "Does the power of the king stop at the village gate? Embeddedness and provincial development in Vietnam," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 677-707, July.
    16. Fernando Saltiel & Cody Tuttle, 2023. "Business Cycles and Police Hires," Working Papers 288, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    17. Hou, Yue & Wang, Peichun, 2020. "Unpolluted decisions: Air quality and judicial outcomes in China," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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