search query: @indexterm Empirical research / total: 594
reference: 34 / 594
Author: | Gagliarducci, S. Nannicini, T. Naticchioni, P. |
Title: | Moonlighting politicians |
Journal: | Journal of Public Economics
2010 : OCT, VOL. 94:9-10, p. 688-699 |
Index terms: | absenteeism incomes elections politics empirical research conjoint analysis Italy adverse selection |
Language: | eng |
Abstract: | In most modern democracies, elected officials may work in the private sector while appointed in parliament. We demonstrate that when the political and market sectors are not mutually exclusive, a trade-off emerges between the quality of elected officials and their time in political life. If high-ability citizens are able to keep earning money also outside of parliament, they will more likely run for election; for the same reason however, they will also more likely shirk if elected. This is confronted with a dataset about members of the Italian Parliament from 1996-2006. The results indicate that bad but dedicated politicians come along with good but not very committed politicians. In fact, there is a non-negligible share of citizens with remarkably high pre-election income who are appointed in parliament. These citizens gain relatively more from their election in terms of outside income. However, they commit less to the parliamentary activity in terms of voting attendance. |
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