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ILR School Events
See all eventsEdoardo Teso, Northwestern State Capacity as an Organizational Problem. Evidence from the Growth of the U.S. State Over 100 Years Abstract: We study how the organization of the state evolves over the process of development of a nation, using a new dataset on the internal organization of the U.S. federal bureaucracy over 1817-1905. First, we show a series of novel facts, describing how the size of the state, its presence across the territory, and its key organizational features evolved over the nineteenth century. Second, exploiting the staggered expansion of the railroad and telegraph networks across space, we show that the ability of politicians to monitor state agents throughout the territory is an important driver of these facts: locations with lower transportation and communication costs with Washington DC have more state presence, are delegated more decision power, and have lower employee turnover. The results suggest that high monitoring costs are associated with small, personalistic state organizations based on networks of trust; technological innovations lowering monitoring costs facilitate the emergence of modern bureaucratic states.
Future of Work Fellowships
The ILR Future of Work fellowship program supports postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students who work with our world-leading faculty on innovative and impactful research projects.
This fellowship program is designed to promote the benefits of strong collaboration between newer researchers and resident faculty members in studying impactful topics related to the future of work. Fellows and their faculty sponsors alike are enabled to address challenging research questions and break out of any stereotypes or default thinking around the future of work.
Professor Martin Wells has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society.
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the Future of Work.
The Martin P. Catherwood Library is the most comprehensive resource on labor and employment in North America, offering expert research support through reference services, instruction, online guides and access to premier collections.