Fifty Paths to Bureaucracy: The Endogenous Development of Pensions and Civil-Service Systems in the US Federal System

Today, a majority of state-government employees in the United States enjoy both pensions and civil-service protections. What relationship do these policies have to one another, and what accounts for their development across states? Although distinct, both are significant commitments governments make to recruit and retain workers. Their timing varied greatly within and across states due to a lack of national regulation. Slightly over half of states passed substantial general-employee pensions before shifting to merit. I argue the two policies are separate but endogenous: each creates incentives encouraging the appearance of the other. Both served political and managerial purposes as employee lobbying combined with growing demands for administrative capacity. Quantitative and case-study approaches provide empirical support for this account. Pensions and merit complement each other and help shape government administration, suggesting that reforms or cutbacks to one diminish the other’s effectiveness.