Shigeo Hirano
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
at time of fellowship
2013 to 2014
Hirano will write a series of articles that examines how political reforms designed to insulate city workers from political forces by professionalizing the civil service and the city manager system have improved the performance of local governments. Using a rich original database that includes information on large and medium sized cities during the first half of the twentieth century, Hirano will examine whether the professionalization of city bureaucrats had any impact on government performance.