TY - CONF
T1 - The Lure of the Private Sector
T2 - Career prospects affect the selection out of the Senate
AU - Egerod, Benjamin Carl Krag
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - While it is often conjectured that elected politicians take lobbying jobs to cash in on their political experience, no quantitative evidence has been collected to investigate this proposition. I argue that legislators gauge their own career prospects by observing how successful their former colleagues -- who now work as lobbyists -- are. I document that when private sector career prospects improve, so does the probability that the average US senator leaves office to take a lobbying job. There is no effect immediately before a senator's pension scheme improves, and senators, who retire from working life after Congress or are elected to a safe seat, are unaffected by private sector career prospects. This indicates that senators react to opportunity costs associated with being in office. Finally, while the results suggest that certain ideological types are more attracted by private sector rewards than others, low turnover in the Senate makes it unlikely that the revolving door has changed the composition of the chamber.
AB - While it is often conjectured that elected politicians take lobbying jobs to cash in on their political experience, no quantitative evidence has been collected to investigate this proposition. I argue that legislators gauge their own career prospects by observing how successful their former colleagues -- who now work as lobbyists -- are. I document that when private sector career prospects improve, so does the probability that the average US senator leaves office to take a lobbying job. There is no effect immediately before a senator's pension scheme improves, and senators, who retire from working life after Congress or are elected to a safe seat, are unaffected by private sector career prospects. This indicates that senators react to opportunity costs associated with being in office. Finally, while the results suggest that certain ideological types are more attracted by private sector rewards than others, low turnover in the Senate makes it unlikely that the revolving door has changed the composition of the chamber.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Revolving door politics
KW - Voluntary retirement
KW - US Senate
KW - US Congress
KW - Elite Careers
KW - Special interest groups
KW - Lobbying
M3 - Paper
ER -