Gustavo Fajardo es Economista Principal de de CAF-Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina. Tiene un PhD en Economía por el CEMFI (España) y un Máster en Economía por la misma universidad. Se especializa en economía política y desarrollo económico y sus investigaciones han sido publicadas en revistas académicas como The Economic Journal y Journal of Public Economics, entre otros.

Abstract: This paper provides quantitative evidence of the existence of nepotism in the Mexican judiciary and of its consequences on judicial efficiency. The arrival of a judge into a judicial circuit results in the hiring of 0.05 relatives to key court staff positions within the following year on average, a figure which is probably a lower bound of the overall effect. The observed nepotism is concentrated among judges who have been sanctioned for administrative offenses. Importantly, we find that the appointment of relatives of judges in a court’s staff leads to a reduction in the court’s productivity, which indicates that such hires are motivated by rent-seeking rather than by efficiency purposes. Importantly for personnel policy, the effect is concentrated among judges who are assigned to courts located in their state of birth—where jobs might be closer to a wider family network—and among appeal judges—who may have access to larger institutional resources and face lower career incentives.

Autores: Pablo Brassiolo (CAF), Ricardo Estrada (CAF), Gustavo Fajardo (CAF) y Julián Martínez-Correa (CEDLAS)

Organizan: Departamento de Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Revista Económica

Contacto: iie@econo.unlp.edu.ar