Human Capital and Wages in the Late Ottoman Bureaucracy: A Descriptive and Regression Analysis

This article investigates the impact of modern educational institutions on bureaucratic wage structures in the Ottoman Empire using a novel micro-dataset. Drawing on the archival records of 201 officials employed in the Ministry of Post and Telegraph between 1881 and 1910, this study analyzes the effects of Darüşşafaka schooling and telegraph training in Paris, foreign‐language proficiency, experience, and duty location on wages using both cross-sectional and panel models. The findings show sizeable wage premia for higher education and indicate that postings farther from the capital were supported by compensating incentives. In addition, long-term wage growth is associated with occupational experience and foreign-language skills. This study offers an early quantitative contribution by testing wage differentiation in the late Ottoman bureaucracy within the frameworks of human capital, signaling, and compensating wage differentials in a historical context.