Ideology and Performance in Public Organizations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Spenkuch, Jorg L.; Teso, Edoardo; Xu, Guo
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20355
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1171-1203
• 关键词: CIVIL-SERVICE; financial incentives; motivation; DISCRETION; selection; POWERS

摘要

We combine personnel records of the United States federal bureaucracy from 1997 to 2019 with administrative voter registration data to study how ideological alignment between politicians and bureaucrats affects turnover and performance. We document significant partisan cycles and turnover among political appointees. By contrast, we find no political cycles in the civil service. At any point in time, a sizable share of bureaucrats is ideologically misaligned with their political leaders. We study the performance implications of this misalignment for the case of procurement officers. Exploiting presidential transitions as a source of within-bureaucrat variation in political alignment, we find that procurement contracts overseen by misaligned officers exhibit greater cost overruns and delays. We provide evidence consistent with a general morale effect, whereby misaligned bureaucrats are less motivated to pursue the organizational mission. Our results thus help to shed some of the first light on the costs of ideological misalignment within public organizations.