MPs for Sale? Estimating Returns to Office in Post-War British Politics

Andy Eggers and Jens Hainmueller

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: While the role of money in policymaking is a central question in political economy research, surprisingly little attention has been given to the rents politicians actually derive from politics. We use both matching and a regression discontinuity design to analyze an original dataset on the estates of recently deceased British politicians. We find that serving in Parliament roughly doubled the wealth at death of Conservative MPs but had no discernible effect on the wealth of Labour MPs. We argue that Conservative MPs profited from office in a lax regulatory environment by using their political positions to obtain outside work as directors, consultants, and lobbyists, both while in office and after retirement. Our results are consistent with anecdotal evidence on MPs' outside financial dealings but suggest that the magnitude of Conservatives' financial gains from office was larger than has been appreciated.

Keywords: British Politics; returns to office; rents from office; political economy; money and politics; regression discontinuity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-03-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:7892

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