It Takes a Village Election: Turnover and Performance in Local Bureaucracies

We thank the Indonesia Research Fund, the World Bank Knowledge for Change Program, the Ministry of Home Affairs in Indonesia, J-PAL Southeast Asia, SurveyMETER, and Dewi Susanti for their invaluable collaboration and support. We also thank Ben Olken and Dan Rogger for sharing survey instruments, and Diana Moreira and Philipp Barteska for detailed feedback. We are grateful to Astuti Kusumaningrum, M. Radhiyan Pasopati Pribadi, Soala Ekine, Colley Windya, Chaerudin Kodir, Naretta Veronica, Faiz Essa, and Ronin McCobb for excellent research management and assistance. Finally, we thank conference participants at the NBER Political Economy Program, the NBER Organizational Economics Working Group, the Berkeley-VSE Conference on Political Economy and Governance, the Australian Conference of Economists, the 7th Conference on the Political Economy of Democracy and Dictatorship at the University of Münster, the 2024 SIOE Conference, the World Bank DIME-KDI Conference, and seminar participants at CEMFI, Princeton University, Tor Vergata, Tulane University, University of Bochum, University of Bologna, UCLA, University of Manchester, University of Maryland, University of Padova, University of Toronto, and World Bank DECRG. All errors are our own. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent, or the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• February 26, 2025