Political careers or career politicians?

Abstract

Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modern democracies: there are career politicians (i.e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave politics before retirement and work in the private sector). In this paper, we propose a dynamic equilibrium model of the careers of politicians in an environment with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are heterogeneous with respect to their market ability and political skills. Our analysis provides an explanation for the existence of career politicians and individuals with political careers, and their motivations. We also investigate the effects of monetary incentives and other features of the political-economic environment on the quality of politicians and their careers. We show that an increase in the salary a politician receives while in office decreases the average quality of individuals who become politicians, decreases turnover in office, and may either decrease or increase the average quality of career politicians.

Public servants in parliament: theory and evidence on its determinants in Germany

“…It links with several strands of literature in political science, political economics of selection and markets for politicians (e.g., Besley 2004Besley , 2005Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004;Caselli and Morelli 2004;Eichenberger 2003;Gagliarducci and Nannicini 2009;Ferraz and Finan 2009;Mansbridge 2008;Serna 1995), disclosure rules for politicians (e.g., Niessen and Ruenzi 2009;van Aaken and Voigt 2009;Djankov et al 2009), economic analysis of political careers (e.g., Mattozzi and Merlo 2008;Diermeier et al 2005;Keane and Merlo 2007), and political recruitment and elite research (e.g., Best and Cotta 2004;Best 2007a;Norris 1997Norris , 2004Patzelt 1999). Another link is with work in administrative science and comparative constitutional law on issues of incompatibility (e.g., van Aaken 2005;von Arnim 2006).…”

“…Examples are senior teachers (Oberstudienrat), head teachers (Schulrektor), lord high commissioners (Oberkommissar) or mayors (for a general economic analysis of political careers, seeMerlo et al 2008;Mattozzi and Merlo 2008). 20 As argued above, in a regime where public servants are compatible, no unambiguous hypothesis can be formulated with regard to the organization of the parliament as part-or full-time and its relative attractiveness for public servants.…”

Paying Politicians: Not Too Little, Not Too Much

“…The assumption of uniform pay is standard in the political economy literature (e.g. Caselli and Morelli 2004;Messner and Polborn 2004;Besley 2004;Poutvaara and Takalo 2007;Beniers and Dur 2007;Mattozzi and Merlo 2008;Cerina and Deidda 2017). 3 Besides practical difficulties, one of the reasons for the absence of screening mechanisms and, especially, pay-for-performance schemes in politics is related to PSM.…”

“…Caselli and Morelli (2001) show that competent and honest individuals are attracted only when the pay is relatively high. Mattozzi and Merlo (2008) consider individuals with different political skills and different market skills, and show that a pay rise has a linear effect, either positive or negative, on the quality of politicians.…”

Political Economy Models of Elections

“…Understanding the entry into politics can help shed light on differentials in performance between countries that may be related to the quality of the political class. For example, Caselli & Morelli (2004), Messner & Polborn (2004), and Mattozzi & Merlo (2008), among others, use the citizen-candidate framework to analyze how entrants of different quality respond to incentives of office-holding. These papers focus in particular on the impact of salaries on candidate qualities.…”