The Revolving Door and Regulatory Enforcement: Firm-Level Evidence on Tax Rates and Tax Audits

Egerod, Benjamin C. K.

doi:10.1086/726957

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The workplace is an important site of political preference formation (Kitschelt and Rehm 2014). We know that the professions politicians held before they were elected influence their decisions once they are in office (Adolph 2013; Carnes 2013; Szakonyi 2020) and that policymaking is affected by politicians and staffers anticipating future private sector employment (Egerod 2019; Shepherd and You 2020). These findings suggest that working in the private sector while holding office should also affect how MPs vote in parliament.…”

Section: Private Sector Jobs and Parliamentary Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the study adds to research on the connection between legislators’ professional activities and their decisions in office. Previous studies demonstrate that politicians’ jobs before taking office, as well as the jobs they take up after leaving, affect how they vote and what topics they focus on (e.g., Adolph 2013; Carnes 2013; Egerod 2019; Shepherd and You 2020; Szakonyi 2020). I contribute to this line of inquiry by showing that current private sector employment also has an impact on parliamentary behavior.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Politicians’ Private Sector Jobs and Parliamentary Behavior

Weschle

2022

American J Political Sci

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About 80% of democracies allow legislators to be employed in the private sector while they hold office. However, we know little about the consequences of this practice. In this article, I use newly assembled panel data of all members of the United Kingdom House of Commons and a difference‐in‐differences design to investigate how legislators change their parliamentary behavior when they have outside earnings. When holding a private sector job, members of the governing Conservative Party, who earn the vast majority of outside income, change whether and how they vote on the floor of parliament as well as increase the number of written parliamentary questions they ask by 60%. For the latter, I demonstrate a targeted pattern suggesting that the increase relates to their employment. The article thus shows that one of the most common, and yet least studied, forms of money in politics affects politicians’ parliamentary behavior.

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