Labor supply of politicians
By: Raymond Fisman ... [et al.].
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 17726; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 17726.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "We examine the labor supply of politicians using data on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).  We exploit the introduction of a law that equalized MEPs' salaries, which had previously differed by as much as a factor of ten.  Doubling an MEP's salary increases the probability of running for reelection by 23 percentage points and increases the logarithm of the number of parties that field a candidate by 29 percent of a standard deviation.  A salary increase has no discernible impact on absenteeism or shirking from legislative sessions; in contrast, non-pecuniary motives, proxied by home-country corruption, substantially impact the intensive margin of labor supply.  Finally, an increase in salary lowers the quality of elected MEPs, measured by the selectivity of their undergraduate institutions"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 2/28/2012.

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