us state capacity

State capacity and the development of the US

VoxDevTalk

Published 24.01.24

What was the role of state capacity in the economic development of the US?

Read “State Capacity as an Organizational Problem. Evidence from the Growth of the U.S. State over 100 years” by Nicola Mastrorocco and Edoardo Teso here.

In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Nicola Mastrorocco discusses the key takeaways from five years of work with Edoardo Teso digitalising civil service records in the US. This evidence on economic development in the US during the 19th century shows how 100 years of bureaucracy changed the US, and Nicola outlines what this tells us about how a state bureaucracy evolves.