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http://hdl.handle.net/10419/51669
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| Title: | | The politicians' wage gap: Insights from German members of parliament  |
| Authors: | | Peichl, Andreas Pestel, Nico Siegloch, Sebastian |
| Issue Date: | | 2011 |
| Series/Report no.: | | Discussion paper series // Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit 5520 |
| Abstract: | | Using a unique dataset of German members of parliament with information on total earnings including outside income, this paper analyzes the politicians' wage gap (PWG). After controlling for observable characteristics as well as accounting for selection into politics, we find a positive PWG which is statistically and economically significant. It amounts to 40-60% compared to citizens with an executive position. Hence, we show that the widely held claim that politicians would earn more in the private sector is not confirmed by our data. Our findings are robust with respect to potential unobserved confounders. We further show that the PWG exceeds campaigning costs and cannot be justified by extraordinary workload. Hence, our results suggest that part of the PWG can be interpreted as rent extraction. This calls for a reform of the regulation of outside earnings, which account for a sizeable share of the wage premium. |
| Subjects: | | politicians' wage gap descriptive representation citizen-candidate model political rents outside earnings |
| JEL: | | D72 H11 H83 J31 J45 |
| Persistent Identifier of the first edition: | | urn:nbn:de:101:1-201104113934 |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | IZA Discussion Papers, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA)
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