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American Economic Review Vol. 102 No. 7 2012

Revolving Door Lobbyists

Jordi Blanes i Vidal1; Mirko Draca2; Christian Fons-Rosen3

1 Department of Management, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. · 2 Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom. · 3 Department of Economics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, Centre for Economic Performance, Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08006 Barcelona, Spain.

open access

Abstract

Washington's `revolving door' -the movement from government service into the lobbying industry- is regarded as a major concern for policy-making. We study how ex-government staffers benefit from the personal connections acquired during their public service. Lobbyists with experience in the office of a US Senator suffer a 24% drop in generated revenue when that Senator leaves office. The effect is immediate, discontinuous around the exit period and long-lasting. Consistent with the notion that lobbyists sell access to powerful politicians, the drop in revenue is increasing in the seniority of and committee assignments power held by the exiting politician.

DOI
10.1257/aer.102.7.3731
Volume
102
Issue
7
Pages
3731-3748
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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