When Selling Offices Made Rebellions More Likely in Colonial Peru

📌 What This Paper Asks

This study examines how different appointment mechanisms—particularly the sale of offices—affected the performance of government officials in colonial Peru. The focus is on sales into the audiencia, a high-level institution with oversight responsibilities over provincial officials, and the downstream consequences for local governance.

🧾 Evidence and Approach

• Links instances of entry by sale into the audiencia to subsequent changes in the value and behavior of provincial offices and to occurrences of spontaneous rebellions against colonial authorities.
• Traces how the composition of officials entering the audiencia, as determined by appointment by sale, alters incentives and enforcement across government layers.

🔑 Key Findings

• Entry by sale into the audiencia raised the measurable value of provincial positions, indicating these offices captured higher (often illicit) returns from holding office.
• Such sales also increased the likelihood of spontaneous rebellions against colonial authorities.
• The effects appear driven by the type of official who bought entry into the audiencia—these entrants were less likely to restrain provincial officials, plausibly because of their social and economic connections.

📣 Why This Matters

These results show that when office selling creates profitable complementarities across hierarchical layers of government, it can generate inefficient and unstable outcomes. Understanding how the nature of appointees shapes oversight helps explain when marketed public offices undermine governance rather than improve it.