Bureaucrat assignments as instruments of political control: Theory and evidence from land administration officials in India

Original

Bureaucrat assignments as instruments of political control: Theory and evidence from land administration officials in India

Anustubh Agnihotri, Aditya Dasgupta, Devesh Kapur

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates how politicians use the assignment of officials to geographical posts—a personnel system found in many countries—as a system of incentives to control, and possibly corrupt, bureaucratic behavior. The argument is developed with a matching model and tested with a nationwide survey of Indian officials who administer land, a lucrative asset and source of rents in fast‐growing countries. With an unobtrusive design, we provide evidence that officials prefer geographical posts with urban amenities, good staffing, and hometown proximity. These preferences are intense in salary‐equivalent terms. Ruling parties use this as leverage to exert pressure on officials to bend regulations by assigning them to their preferred posts but threatening transfers should they fail to comply, especially in jurisdictions with high regulatory corruption potential (measured with remote‐sensing data on flow of rural‐to‐urban land transactions). The findings highlight personnel policy as a potent instrument of political control/corruption of bureaucracy.