Self-Selection into Civil Service in China: Individual Traits and (Mis)Beliefs

The recruitment and selection of bureaucrats into government is important for governance quality. However, the lack of information on the government structure might confound the expectations and beliefs that candidates hold on the government structure, and the resultant misbelief at the individual level might generate distinctive self-selection effects on bureaucrat candidates than in a setting with perfect information. By focusing on China's civil-service system, we plan to conduct a survey experiment to examine how individual citizens' beliefs pertaining to the structure of the government and its recruitment affect their choices to enter. Furthermore, we plan to assess how these beliefs affect individuals heterogeneously across different traits, such as ability/competence, political attitude, pro-social attitude (altruism), and risk preferences.