Jim Robinson (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Jim Robinson (UChicago), "The Success of the Informal State in Britain"

Abstract

We estimate the effectiveness of the informal state in Britain. Until the late 19th century, the size of the salaried bureaucracy was about 10 percent of the size of the unsalaried, community based, bureaucracy which supplied public goods, maintained order, and staffed the legal sector. In a new dataset of formal and informal local bureaucrats operating in cities we show that informally incentivized bureaucrats do better on a range of public tasks. Higher level bureaucrats, such as mayors, were motivated by a combination of status, and career prospects. Boroughs, which typically did not have direct tax revenue, attracted such individuals that could not be hired at market wages. Only after the Industrial Revolution, when the central state acquired sufficient revenue to pay everyone was the British government formalized. Our results shed new light on the nature of state capacity and its connection with economic development.

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

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See the seminar's full schedule at the Alesina Seminar page.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.