 The economic consequences of businesspeople in politics: A surveyEuropean Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 86, issue C Abstract: To which extent does business experience of politicians influence economic policies and economic outcomes? I review the new empirical literature which examines this question. The survey encompasses the literature on business politicians at the national, sub-national and local level. The results show that business politicians were active in promoting globalization and market-oriented economic reforms and influenced budget composition. Business politicians prioritized public investment expenditure and increased spending on infrastructure, roads and transport. They decreased spending on public consumption and transfers. The market-oriented policies translated into effects on economic outcomes. In the US states, for example, market-oriented policies of business politicians increased economic growth. Future research should examine how businesspeople in parliament influence economic policies and outcomes and employ survey experiments to investigate voters’ perceptions of business politicians. Keywords: Political leaders; Business background; Business politicians; Economic policies and outcomes (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:86:y:2025:i:c:s0176268024001228 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102620 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by J. De Haan, A. L. Hillman and H. W. Ursprung More articles in European Journal of Political Economy from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.