TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mattozzi,Andrea
AU  - Merlo,Antonio
TI  - Political Careers or Career Politicians?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12921
PY  - 2007
Y2  - February 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12921
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12921.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Andrea Mattozzi
California Institute of Technology
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, MC 228
Pasadena, CA 91125
E-Mail: andrea@hss.caltech.edu

Antonio M. Merlo
Department of Economics
University of Pennsylvania
3718 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297
Tel: 215/898-7933
Fax: 215/573-2057
E-Mail: merloa@econ.upenn.edu
AB  - Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modern democracies: there are career politicians (i.e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave politics before retirement and work in the private sector). In this paper, we propose a dynamic equilibrium model of the careers of politicians in an environment with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are heterogeneous with respect to their market ability and political skills. Our analysis provides an explanation for the existence of career politicians and individuals with political careers, and their motivations. We also investigate the effects of monetary incentives and other features of the political-economic environment on the quality of politicians and their careers. We show that an increase in the salary a politician receives while in office decreases the average quality of individuals who become politicians, decreases turnover in office, and may either decrease or increase the average quality of career politicians.
ER  -