Sorting for K Street: postemployment regulations and strategic wage setting in congress

Elisa Maria Wirsching

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: While postemployment regulations are a common tool to slow the revolving door in government, little is known about their effectiveness and consequences. Using the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), I argue that policymakers strategically adjust their behaviors to maintain lucrative career options in the lobbying industry. HLOGA prohibited staffers-turned-lobbyists who earn at least 75% of a Congress member’s salary from contacting their ex-employers in Congress for one year. Using data on the complete set of congressional staff (2001–2016), I show that staffers sort below the salary threshold post-HLOGA. Employing various panel data analyses, I also find that selecting out of the regulation increases a staffer’s probability to become a lobbyist and ensures a substantial premium in revenues at the beginning of their lobbying career. These results explain why reforms of the revolving door fail and provide insights on institutional determinants of career incentives for nonelected public officials.

Keywords: congress; lobbying; revolving door; wage sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2025-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Politics, April, 2025, 87(2), pp. 664-679. ISSN: 0022-3816

Downloads: (external link)
https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/140970/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:140970

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().