Searching for Symptoms of Political Shirking: Congressional Foreign Travel

Glenn R Parker and Stephen C Powers

Public Choice, 2002, vol. 110, issue 1-2, 173-91

Abstract: Despite the hypothesized propensity for shirking to mark legislative institutions, the evidence is rather equivocal; moreover, most of the research has focused exclusively on legislator voting, thereby constraining whatever generalizations might emerge. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate over the question of political shirking by extending the range of phenomena examined to include congressional foreign travel. Our analysis provides evidence that opportunism is a problem in Congress. We find that last-period problems have arisen in the area of foreign travel, and that increased scrutiny to the problem on the part of Congress only shifted consumption patterns, i.e., legislators began taking foreign junkets near, but not at the end of, their legislative careers. Not all foreign travel should be construed as worthless junketing since there is strong evidence that some foreign travel is related to members' responsibilities on congressional committees. Copyright 2002 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 2002
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