Political dynasties have long been present in democracies, raising concerns that inequality in the distribution of political power may reflect imperfections in democratic representation. However, the persistence of political elites may simply reflect differences in ability or political vocation across families and not their entrenchment in power. We show that dynastic prevalence in the Congress of the U.S. is high compared to that in other occupations and that political dynasties do not merely reflect permanent differences in family characteristics. On the contrary, using two instrumental variable techniques we find that political power is self-perpetuating: legislators who hold power for longer become more likely to have relatives entering Congress in the future. Thus, in politics, power begets power. Copyright © 2009 The Review of Economic Studies Limited.

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Partisan identity shapes social, mental, economic, and physical life. Using a novel dataset, we study the consequences of partisan identity by examining the immediate impact of electoral loss and victory on happiness and sadness. Employing a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity model we present two primary findings. First, elections strongly affect the immediate happiness/sadness of partisan losers, but minimally impact partisan winners. This effect is consistent with psychological research on the good-bad hedonic asymmetry, but appears to dissipate within a week after the election. Second, the immediate happiness consequences to partisan losers are relatively strong. To illustrate, we show that partisans are affected two times more by their party losing the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election than both respondents with children were to the Newtown shootings and respondents living in Boston were to the Boston Marathon bombings. We discuss implications regarding the centrality of partisan identity to the self and its well-being.

C ompetition among firms yields many benefits but can also encourage firms to engage in corrupt or unethical activities. We argue that competition can lead organizations to provide services that customers demand but that violate government regulations, especially when price competition is restricted. Using 28 million vehicle emissions tests from more than 11,000 facilities, we show that increased competition is associated with greater inspection leniency, a service quality attribute that customers value but is illegal and socially costly. Firms with more competitors pass customer vehicles at higher rates and are more likely to lose customers whom they fail, suggesting that competition intensifies pressure on facilities to provide illegal leniency. We also show that, at least in markets in which pricing is restricted, firms use corrupt and unethical practices as an entry strategy.

In this paper, we explore how organizations influence the unethical behavior of their employees. Using a unique data set of over three million vehicle emissions tests, we find strong evidence of ethical spillovers from firms to individuals. When inspectors work across different organizations, they adjust the rate at which they pass vehicles to the norms of those with whom they work. These spillovers are strongest at large facilities and corporate chains, and weakest for the large-volume inspectors. These results are consistent with the economics literature on productivity spillovers from organizations and peers and suggest that managers can influence the ethics of employee behavior through both formal norms and incentives. The results also suggest that employees have persistent ethics that limit the magnitude of this influence. These results imply that if ethical conformity is important to the financial and legal health of the organization, managers must be vigilant in their hiring, training, and monitoring to ensure that employee behavior is consistent with firm objectives.peer effects, spillovers, fraud, corruption, productivity, ethics

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