Capture and the bureaucratic mafia: does the revolving door erode bureaucratic integrity?

Does the revolving door phenomenon erode bureaucratic integrity? To answer this question, we undertake a quantitative case study of a private university in South Korea that recruited a former vice minister of education as its president. Specifically, we investigate whether after employing this high-ranking former public official the university received favorable treatment from the education ministry in terms of funding. Estimates from difference-in-difference, triple difference, and synthetic control methods all suggest that the high-profile public official’s recruitment is associated with financial benefits from the official’s former employing agency; no such advantage, however, was observed for benefits from other agencies. This result offers suggestive but compelling evidence that the revolving door distorts the allocation of government resources; the financial benefits the university received are due not to the recruited official’s greater competence, expertise, or knowledge but rather to his implicit collusion with the government.