American Economic Review Vol. 95 No. 1 2005

A Political Economy Model of Congressional Careers

Daniel Diermeier¹; Michael P. Keane²; Antonio Merlo³

¹ Department of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. · ² Department of Economics, Yale University, 37 Hill-house Avenue, New Haven, CT 06520. · ³ Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Abstract

Our main goal is to quantify the returns to a career in the United States Congress. We specify a dynamic model of career decisions of a member of Congress andestimate this model using a newly collected dataset. Given estimates of the structural model, we assess reelection probabilities, estimate the effect of congressional experience on private and public sector wages, and quantify the value of a congressional seat. Moreover, we assess how an increase in the congressional wage or the imposition of term limits would affect the career decisions of politicians and the returns from a career in Congress.

DOI

10.1257/0002828053828464

Volume

95

Issue

1

Pages

347-373

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓