American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Strengthening State Capacity: Civil Service Reform and Public Sector Performance during the Gilded Age
American Economic Review
vol. 114,
no. 8, August 2024
(pp. 2352–87)
Abstract
We use newly digitized records from the post office to study the effects of strengthened state capacity between 1875 and 1901. Exploiting the implementation of the Pendleton Act—a landmark statute that shielded bureaucrats from political interference—across US cities over two waves, we find that civil service reform reduced postal delivery errors and increased productivity. These improvements were most pronounced during election years when the reform dampened bureaucratic turnover. We provide suggestive evidence that reformed cities witnessed declining local partisan newspapers. Separating politics from administration, therefore, not only improved state effectiveness but also weakened the role of local politics.Citation
Aneja, Abhay, and Guo Xu. 2024. "Strengthening State Capacity: Civil Service Reform and Public Sector Performance during the Gilded Age." American Economic Review, 114 (8): 2352–87. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20230019Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D24 Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- H83 Public Administration; Public Sector Accounting and Audits
- J45 Public Sector Labor Markets
- L82 Entertainment; Media
- L87 Postal and Delivery Services
- N41 Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913