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

Abstract

This paper studies the characteristics of the ghost deputies of the French National Assembly, i.e. deputies who do not have any official recorded activity over a whole year. Using a rich dataset providing various information about all deputies from 1959 to 2012, the results indicate that the typical ghost deputy is an old man with a low level of schooling, member of a large party which does not support the government and who is elected in jurisdiction with a low level of political competition. However, personal characteristics are less and less correlated with performance over the years. Finally, ghost deputies face more difficulties to achieve reelection, but are penalized only at the first round, voters exclusively considering national factors at the second round.

Gerontocracy in a comparative perspective: Explaining why political leaders are (almost always) older than their constituents

“…In a study on the Vermont state legislature, Fengler (1980) finds that legislators aged 65 or older have higher absenteeism rates and initiate fewer bills. Aging parliamentarians have also been found to be less active in France (Gavoille, 2018), Germany (Bailer & Ohmura, 2018), and Japan (Ono, 2015). In the same spirit, Geys and Mause (2016) find that in the United Kingdom, retiring MPs (i.e., those over 65 who do not intend to run for reelection) are more prone to shirking in the strict sense—that is, substituting leisure for work (see also Willumsen & Goetz, 2017; Lott, 1990, and Clark & Lucas Williams, 2014 on the United States; Bailer & Ohmura, 2018 on Germany).…”

European Monetary Union reform preferences of French and German parliamentarians

“…However, existing evidence suggests that personal characteristics of individual MPs are important drivers of legislative performance and policy preferences (e.g. for the European level, see Heinemann et al., 2009; for national MPs in France and Germany, see Gavoille, 2018 and Heinemann and Janeba, 2011, respectively). Similarly, relating to appointments in governments, Hallerberg and Wehner (2018) analyze when economists become policy makers across a large set of countries.…”

Less But Better? The Influence of Gender on Political Activity

“…Francois and Weill (2014) and Volle et al (2021) do not detect any statistically significant difference between male and female parliamentarians. In contrast, Gavoille and Verschelde (2017) and Gavoille (2018) show that women are more active than men. Bach (2012) analyzes the influence of holding multiple offices, but he does not study gender.…”