We link newly-digitized personnel records of the U.S. government for 1907-1921 to census data to study the segregation of the civil service by race under President Woodrow Wilson. Using a difference-in-differences design around Wilson’s inauguration, we find that the introduction of employment...

Using exogenous variation in social proximity generated by an allocation rule, we find that bureaucrats assigned to their home states are perceived to be more corrupt and less able to withstand illegitimate political pressure. Despite this, we observe that home officers are more likely to be...

This paper exploits the idiosyncratic line of contact separating Allied and Soviet troops within East Germany at the end of WWII to study political resistance in a non-democracy. When Nazi Germany surrendered, 40% of what would become the authoritarian German Democratic Republic was initially...

This paper exploits the idiosyncratic line of contact separating Allied and Soviet troops within East Germany at the end of WWII to study political resistance in a non-democracy. When Nazi Germany surrendered, 40% of what would become the authoritarian German Democratic Republic was initially...

This paper exploits the idiosyncratic line of contact separating Allied and Soviet troops within East Germany at the end of WWII to study political resistance in a non-democracy. When Nazi Germany surrendered, 40% of what would become the authoritarian German Democratic Republic was initially...

We use newly digitized records from the U.S. Post Office to study how strengthening state capacity affects public service delivery and innovation in over 2,800 cities between 1875-1905. Exploiting the gradual expansion of a major civil service reform, cities with a reformed postal office...