Using a Monte Carlo framework, we analyze the risks and rewards of moving from an unfunded defined benefit pension system to a funded plan for German civil servants, allowing for alternative strategic contribution and investment patterns. In the process we integrate a Conditional Value at Risk...

Bureaucracies often post staff to better or worse locations, ostensibly to provide incentives. Yet we know little about whether this works, with heterogeneity in preferences over postings impacting effectiveness. We propose a performance-ranked serial dictatorship mechanism, whereby bureaucrats...

We study the causes and consequences of patronage in Brazilian cities since the country's re-democratization. We test key mechanisms – fiscal rules, accountability, political ideology, and rent-seeking – and estimate the consequences of patronage for public finances. Our data consist of the...

How important are bureaucrats for the productivity of the state? And to what extent do the tradeoffs between different policies depend on the implementing bureaucrats' effectiveness? Using data on 16million public procurement purchases in Russia during 2011–2016, we show that over 40 percent...

In 1955 only a few states had laws governing collective bargaining by public employees. By 1984 only a few states were without such laws. The emergence of these policies coincides with a dramatic increase in unionization among public employees, and an important puzzle is the direction of...

There is little systematic information on the distribution options in public sector retirement plans and how annuity options are priced relative to the standard single life annuity. This study examines the distribution options of 85 large public retirement plans covering general state employees,...

This paper traces career transitions of federal and state U.S. banking regulators from a large sample of publicly available curricula vitae, and provides basic facts on worker flows between the regulatory and private sector resulting from the revolving door. We find strong countercyclical net...

This paper estimates the impact of collective bargaining legislation on disputes during labor negotiations in the U.S. public sector. We use a large national sample of U.S. state and local government contracts to compare the incidence and intensity of disputes by similar workers under different...

This paper performs a longitudinal comparison of public and private sector pay. Although not decisive because of small sample sizes, the results tend to corroborate the conclusions of previous cross-sectional studies. Specifically, I find that on average wages of federal workers exceed those of...

This paper examines the changes over time in public sector wages and employment relative to private sector wages and employment using data from surveys of establishments and individuals. The paper finds that:(1) The pay of public sector workers relative to private sector workers varies greatly...