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 -