Choosing a Dictator: Bureaucracy and Welfare in Less Developed Polities

   (542 K)

Recent work in the sociology of economic development has emphasized the establishment of a professional government bureaucracy in place of political appointees as an important component of the institutional environment in which private enterprise can flourish. I focus on the role that internal promotion can play in bringing to power individuals who highly value (relative to income) imposition of their preferences over collective goods on the public. Such individuals restrain the corruption of their subordinates as a byproduct of their efforts to implement their preferences using tax revenue. Within this hierarchical framework I investigate the effects of varying subordinate compensation levels and of recruiting them meritocratically.

Published: "Leadership Selection, Internal Promotion, and Bureaucratic Corruption in Less Developed Polities," Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 34 (February 2001), pp. 240-258.

This paper is available as PDF (542 K) or via email.

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX