Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/214583 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
CREMA Working Paper No. 2015-18
Publisher: 
Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA), Zürich
Abstract: 
Countries differ substantially in how they deal with politicians that come from the public sector. Most constitutions include incompatibility and ineligibility rules due to concerns about conflicts of interest and the politicization of the public service. We study how these rules affect the attractiveness of parliamentary mandates for public servants and thus the selection into politics. We compile a novel dataset that captures the fraction of public servants in 76 national legislatures as well as the respective (in)compatibility regimes. On average, there are seven percentage points fewer public servants in parliaments where a strict regime is in force. Supplementary evidence based on IV estimations shows that the fraction of public servants in parliament is positively correlated with government consumption, but not correlated with government effectiveness.
Subjects: 
political selection
public servants
incompatibility
political representation
compensation of politicians
government consumption
JEL: 
D72
K39
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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