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Gunes Gokmen . Photo

Gunes Gokmen

Associate senior lecturer

Gunes Gokmen . Photo

Career incentives in political hierarchy: evidence from Imperial Russia

Author

  • Gunes Gokmen
  • Dmitrii Kofanov

Summary, in English

This paper studies political career incentives in a nondemocratic historical setting to assess early political institutions. We construct a novel panel database of governors of Imperial Russia in 91 provinces between 1895 and 1914. Measuring an imperial governor’s performance by his ability of peacekeeping, we test whether the central authorities in the Russian Empire resorted to career incentives to improve the performance of provincial governors. We find that the central administration promoted better performing governors only in the peripheral provinces (oblasts), but not in the main ones (gubernias). In addition, we show that political connections had no significant effect on career prospects.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2020

Language

English

Pages

264-287

Publication/Series

European Review of Economic History

Volume

24

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Economics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1474-0044