Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Jul, 2023, Volume 91, Issue 4

Ideology and Performance in Public Organizations

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20355
p. 1171-1203

Jörg L. Spenkuch, Edoardo Teso, Guo Xu

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.


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Supplement to "Ideology and Performance in Public Organizations"

Jörg L. Spenkuch, Edoardo Teso and Guo Xu

This zip file contains the replication files for the manuscript.

Supplement to "Ideology and Performance in Public Organizations"

Jörg L. Spenkuch, Edoardo Teso and Guo Xu

This online appendix contains material not found within the manuscript.