Meritocracy and Kinship for Enhanced Court Performance? The Effects of Anti-Nepotism Reforms on the Mexican Judiciary

Despite the increasing international support for merit-based reforms, there is still little empirical evidence on their effectiveness in reducing nepotism and improving institutional efficiency. This paper provides the first systematic empirical assessment of the effects of the anti-nepotism reforms in the Mexican judiciary. I draw on original administrative data that links court-level performance with a surname-based measure of nepotism. I examine the effects of a series of policy changes aimed at curbing nepotism through the reallocation of related employees and the expansion of meritocratic recruitment to more judicial positions. I employ Difference in Differences and event study estimators to capture the average causal effect of the policy change. I find that (1) the reforms successfully reduced the in courts surnames clustering, however; (2) despite the reduction of the likelihood of nepotism within courts, there is no evidence of a systematic improvement in efficiency across courts, at least in the short term. This suggests that such policy interventions may not straightforwardly enhance institutional performance as anticipated by Weberian theories. The persistence of informal networks or the limited policy design and implementation may hinder the effectiveness of such policy changes, raising questions about alternative strategies for enhancing bureaucratic effectiveness.