Abstract
Chapter 1 of this dissertation investigates how the training of civil servants affects their implementation of policy. I find causal evidence that exposure to economic ideas can durably influence bureaucrat behavior. I study British colonial bureaucrats in India, exploiting a natural experiment created by the abrupt death of Thomas Malthus in 1834, replacing his economics instruction at a bureaucrat training college for that of a contemporary critic, Richard Jones. Linking rainfall shocks to district-level fiscal responses, I show that officials trained by Malthus delivered less relief during droughts, providing 0.10-0.25 SD less aid across all major measures compared with officials taught by Jones. The results reveal that exposure to abstract economic ideas can shape real-world policy implementation for decades.
Chapter 2 of this dissertation investigates how the recruitment of civil servants can affect their performance and the state’s capacity to insulate the economy from adverse economic events. I show that the selection of bureaucrats on the basis of competitive exams, rather than a common alternative of selection by patronage, results in the recruitment of higher-performing civil servants. Using newly digitized data from British India over the period 1846 to 1885, during which the Indian Civil Service abolished recruitment by patronage in favor of competitive exams, I show that district officers selected by these exams are eighty percent more likely to be highly rated on annual performance evaluations and that their districts are up to one-third less likely to experience a famine. The results indicate that civil service exams promote modern public sector performance by selecting high-ability bureaucrats, and that successfully identifying and recruiting the highest-ability candidates promotes state capacity.
Chapter 3 of this dissertation studies the long-run health impacts of a 19th-century colonial tax that sharply altered salt prices across a fiscal border in British India. To enforce the salt tax, the British built a 2,500-mile customs line, the Salt Hedge, which raised salt prices and limited access in eastern regions for several decades. Using a spatial regression discontinuity design around the historical hedge, we show that individuals residing west of the hedge, areas that were historically exposed to relatively lower salt prices, exhibit higher rates of hypertension and heart disease today. Historical archival records confirm sustained salt price gaps during the hedge’s operation (1836–1879), and contemporary consumption data reveal persistent differences in salt use across regions. We highlight a novel pathway through which fiscal policies can leave a long-lasting imprint on health even after the policy itself has been abolished.
