Do black politicians matter? Political leadership and racial composition in top public sector positions
Journal of Development Economics · 2026 · Fernanda Estevan、Thiago de Lucena、Marcos Y. Nakaguma、Alexandre Rabelo
中文摘要
非白人领导者在公共部门高层职位中仍然代表性不足，而其缺位与官僚体系中持续存在的种族差距相关联。本文研究选举一位非白人市长是否会影响巴西公共部门中非白人管理者的占比。我们采用接近选举的断点回归设计，并结合一个关于候选人种族的新颖数据集，该数据集通过对巴西2004—2016年市级选举中所有候选人的照片应用面部分类算法构建而成。平均而言，选举一位非白人市长并不会显著提高非白人管理者的占比，尽管在候选人之间种族对比尤为鲜明的选举中会出现正向效应。我们构建了一个公共部门招聘的搜索理论框架，并记录了白人市长与非白人市长在可观测招聘池上的有限差异，同时几乎没有系统性证据表明存在依种族而定的招聘标准。我们的发现表明，来自美国的证据可能难以直接推广至种族边界更为流动、招聘网络在种族界限之间重叠更多的情境。
Abstract
Non-white leaders remain underrepresented in top public-sector positions, and their absence has been linked to persistent racial gaps in the bureaucracy. This paper investigates whether electing a non-white mayor affects the share of non-white managers in the Brazilian public sector. We leverage a close-election regression discontinuity design combined with a novel dataset on candidates’ race, constructed by applying face-classification algorithms to the photographs of all candidates in Brazil’s 2004–2016 municipal elections. On average, electing a non-white mayor does not significantly increase the share of non-white managers, although positive effects emerge in elections where the racial contrast between candidates is especially pronounced. We develop a search-theoretic framework of public-sector hiring and document limited differentiation in the observable recruitment pools of white and non-white mayors, together with little systematic evidence of race-contingent hiring standards. Our findings suggest that evidence from the United States may not readily generalize to settings with more fluid racial boundaries and greater overlap in recruitment networks across racial lines.