Working Papers

Bureaucratic reform in 19th Century Britain
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ABSTRACT

How do bureaucratic reforms in history work at a micro-level? I collected and digitised individual-level data on thousands of entrants to the British Civil Service from 1864-1875. I study an 1870 reform that forced exam-based hiring on a large part of, but not all, the public sector. I find no evidence that there was growing demand from MP's for reform. I find clear hiring implications, patronage use declined among treated organisations sharply. There is however no evidence that entrants were less connected to the political elite, and only minor evidence of a lesser connection to social elites, consistent with an increased prioritisation of skill but not a changing of the class with access to apply. Examining why compliance was imperfect, I find evidence consistent with a monitoring hypothesis: where labour was felt to be easily monitored there was a clear shift in hiring. Where output was more difficult to observe, or confidentiality required, patronage remained relied on, even in reformed departments. The perceived need for candidates possessing the right stuff in certain aspects of the bureaucracy can help to explain the prolonged persistence of patronage in modern history.

Pandemics and infant vaccination: Evidence from annual vaccination records in colonial India

ABSTRACT

How do pandemics affect medical demand? To study this, I combine district-level vaccination and mortality data from British India before, during, and after the 1918 influenza pandemic to study how pandemics affect medical demand in a developing nation. Districts worse affected by the pandemic report lower vaccinations, but only among young children. These differences disappear after three years. This demand shift is unrelated to either demographic or state capacity changes brought by the pandemic. I provide additional evidence suggesting that households reallocated resources in response to a short-term income shock, rather than changing their underlying attitudes to vaccination.

Work in Progress

Local governance in colonial Nigeria
with Jutta Bolt