Access to the bureaucracy: civil service examinations and the career choices of talent

This article examines how the introduction of merit-based recruitment affects the occupational choices of high-ability individuals in China, where a major reform replaced connection-based civil service selection with standardized examinations. Exploiting the staggered provincial rollout of the exam system as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that the reform significantly increased the likelihood of college graduates – particularly those with bachelor’s degrees – entering the civil service. However, further analysis reveals that individuals from higher socioeconomic backgrounds retained an advantage in securing these positions, partly due to their greater ability to adapt quickly to the new exam-based selection system.