This paper studies whether regional differences in the productivity of Italian Social Security Agency offices can be explained by variation in manager characteristics. Consistent with other settings, offices in the North are more productive on average than those in the South. However, managers differ primarily in demographic characteristics, attaining similar levels of education. Because most of the variation in office productivity is within rather than across region, reassigning managers to more productive offices increases total (and within-region) inequality in productivity while decreasing across-region inequality.