Bureaucrats are a crucial part of states, but only recently has a pioneer literature focused on the determinants of their recruitment. In this article, we study the role of rank in bureaucratic selection in the context of the Chilean civil service, where a decision maker (the President or agency director) chooses a candidate from a shortlist ranked according to a final interview score. Using a regression discontinuity design, we document that first-place candidates have a large advantage in the probability of being selected for top positions in the public sector relative to those in second place. In contrast, all other ranks seem to be irrelevant. Our results are robust to the use of several methods of estimation that take into account the discrete nature of the running variable. Moreover, the effect is associated with a selection process with low levels of competition and low-quality final candidates.

官僚是国家的重要组成部分，但直到最近才出现了侧重于其招聘决定因素的先驱文献。在本文中，我们研究了在智利公务员制度背景下官僚选拔中等级的作用，决策者（总统或机构主管）从根据最终面试分数排名的候选名单中选择候选人。使用回归不连续性设计，我们证明，相对于第二名的候选人，第一名候选人在被选为公共部门高层职位的可能性方面具有很大优势。相比之下，所有其他等级似乎都无关紧要。我们的结果对于使用几种考虑到运行变量的离散性质的估计方法是稳健的。而且，