Author: Zhangkai Huang, Kun Lang (Corresponding author)
Abstract: We develop a queuing model to explain the endogenous aging of officials in hierarchical bureaucracies. We establish that any organization satisfying three conditions—a pyramidal hierarchy, seniority-based promotion, and a closed personnel structure—will inevitably experience personnel aging as an equilibrium outcome. The mechanism operates through the accumulation of waiting queues at each hierarchical level: as the organization matures, the supply of qualified candidates systematically exceeds available positions, lengthening waiting times and raising the average age of promoted officials. We test this mechanism using resume data on municipal Party secretaries in China from 1949 to 2020 and document steady rises in the average age of politicians during stable institutional periods. Simulations calibrated to the Chinese bureaucracy reproduce the observed rise in age and waiting times, and show that the system naturally evolves into a promotion bottleneck: early cohorts advance quickly, but as queues accumulate, later cohorts face progressively longer delays until most officials can be promoted only at the maximum allowable age. Our analysis suggests that bureaucratic aging is an inherent property of the internal dynamics of hierarchical organizations.
Keywords: Bureaucracy; Hierarchy; Queuing theory; Organizational aging; Personnel economics
JEL classification: D73; H11; J45; L22; M51
Journal of Government and Economics: Why government grows old A queuing theory of bureaucratic aging