"Revolving Door Laws and Political Selection"
by Silvia Vannutelli, Assistant Professor of Economics and IPR Fellow
So-called revolving door laws restrict public servants from representing private interests before the government after they leave office. While they mitigate potential conflicts of interest by imposing constraints on post-public service employment, these restrictions also bring about trade-offs as they might reduce the pool of candidates for public positions by lowering the overall benefits of holding office. Vannutelli and her colleagues study the consequences of revolving-door laws for the selection of legislators across U.S. states, exploiting the staggered roll-out of revolving door laws between 1962 and 2017. They first show that, as anticipated, the laws reduce the probability that a legislator registers as a lobbyist after leaving office. More substantively, they show that treated states experience an increase in the probability of uncontested elections, driven primarily by a reduction in the entry of potential challengers and an increase in incumbents' probability of re-running. The researchers provide a simple model of politician career incentives to interpret the results.
This event is part of the Fay Lomax Cook Fall 2023 Colloquium Series, where IPR researchers from around the University share their latest policy-relevant research.
Please note all colloquia this quarter will be held in-person only.