Econometrica · 2023 · Jörg L. Spenkuch、Edoardo Teso、Guo Xu
中文摘要
我们将1997年至2019年美国联邦官僚机构的人事记录与行政选民登记数据相结合，研究政治人物与官僚之间的意识形态一致性如何影响人员流动和绩效。我们记录了政治任命官员中存在显著的党派周期和人员流动。相比之下，我们在文官体系中未发现政治周期。在任何时点，都有相当比例的官僚与其政治领导人在意识形态上不一致。我们以采购官员为例，研究这种不一致对绩效的影响。利用总统更替所带来的官僚个体内部政治一致性变动，我们发现由意识形态不一致的官员监督的采购合同表现出更严重的成本超支和延误。我们提供的证据与一种普遍的“士气效应”相一致，即意识形态不一致的官僚在追求组织使命方面动力较弱。因此，我们的研究结果有助于初步揭示公共组织内部意识形态不一致的成本。
Abstract
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.