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Title: Politicians, Bureaucrats and Patronage

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2006

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Abstract: Differences in career incentives make elected public officials more likely to engage in vote-buying compared to appointed bureaucrats. Sustaining excessive public employment is an example of an inefficient policy that is used by public officials to increase their chances of staying in office. I present a model in which patronage is used by public officials to overcome the commitment problem in vote buying. The model predicts that elected executives choose higher level of public employment than their appointed counterparts and that the difference in employment levels is larger for those public employees that are harder to layoff. I use panel data on local governments in the U.S. to test the predictions of the model.

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Authors: Enikolopov, Ruben

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Institution: Harvard University

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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