Does remuneration affect the discipline and the selection of politicians? Evidence from pay harmonization in the European Parliament

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe study the harmonization of the base remuneration for the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who were previously paid like national parliamentarians implying large differences between the delegations from the 27 member countries. Based on detailed information on individual MEPs between 2004 and 2011, we find that the reform, which comes with an exceptional increase of, on average, 200 percent per national delegation, has a positive incentive effect on in-office effort as approximated by engagement in speeches, written declarations and drafted reports. However, a higher remuneration increases absence. With respect to political selection, we find that a higher remuneration increases re-election rates. The composition of the pool of MEPs in terms of (ex-ante) quality approximated with formal education, previous political experience and occupational background is, however, unaffected. If we restrict our attention to freshmen, we find that a higher remuneration is related to a lower fraction of MEPs with previous political experience at the highest national level.

Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection Into Politics?

“…The ex ante quality of politicians as approximated by the selectivity of their university degree decreases as base pay increases. Braendle () finds a similar and positive effect on re‐election rates. He finds no effect on the composition of the pool of politicians in terms of their formal education, previous political experience, and occupational background.…”

“…Their results, however, are not found at higher levels of government (Kotakorpi and Poutvaara, 2010; Fisman et al. , ; Braendle, ). Then, we discuss the outside and post‐office earnings and the role that rent extraction from political office may play in political selection.…”

Who are the ‘ghost’ MPs? Evidence from the French parliament

“…If Besley et al (2011) find a relation between national leaders' education and GDP growth, this relation remains to be verified in a more direct, simple setting. Other proxies for quality include the previous occupation (Baltrunaite et al, 2014;De Paola and Scoppa, 2011), the political local experience (Braendle, 2015;Galasso and Nannicini, 2011) and being born in the district of election (Shugart et al, 2005). This latter paper is in particular based on the assumption that MPs born in their district of election are more involved in parliamentary work.…”

Electoral cycles in MPs’ salaries: evidence from the German states

“…In the European parliament, by contrast, increased salaries yielded less experienced newly-elected politicians (Braendle 2015). Evidence on how salaries influenced efforts in the European parliament is mixed (Fisman et al 2013, Mocan and Altindag 2013, Braendle 2015.…”

“…In the European parliament, by contrast, increased salaries yielded less experienced newly-elected politicians (Braendle 2015). Evidence on how salaries influenced efforts in the European parliament is mixed (Fisman et al 2013, Mocan and Altindag 2013, Braendle 2015. 4 In the German states, MPs decided annually on their own salaries, particularly in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (currently, the salaries of MPs are coupled with employees' salaries 3 In the United Kingdom, elections influenced MPs' outside activities (Geys 2013).…”