Selecting Top Bureaucrats: Admission Exams and Performance in Brazil
研究巴西法官的录用考试成绩与工作表现的关系，发现考试成绩高的法官结案更多，说明竞争性考试能有效筛选人才。
Abstract In the absence of strong incentives, public service delivery is crucially dependent on bureaucrat selection. Despite wide adoption by governments, it is unclear whether civil service examinations reliably select for job performance. We investigate this question focusing on state judges in Brazil. Exploring monthly data on judicial output and cross-court movement, we estimate that judges account for at least 23% of the observed variation in the number of cases disposed. With novel data on admission examinations, we show that judges with higher grades perform better than lower-ranked peers. Our results suggest competitive examinations can be an effective way to screen candidates.