{"title":"‘Keep friends close, but enemies closer’: connections and political careers","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s11127-024-01152-6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Using newly collected data on ties between local politicians in Italy from 1985 onwards, this paper studies the relation between cross-party connections and future career prospects. Exploiting a difference-in-discontinuities design, I find that ruling coalition members connected with the leader of the opposition in local councils are twice as likely to be promoted to the local government. The results are confirmed with a number of placebo exercises. Interestingly, the effect of connections with the leader of the rivals disappears when I consider appointments to boards of state-owned enterprises or to other councils in which the party faces different politicians as opponents. A possible mechanism that may account for these results is that connected politicians act as political brokers and smooth the relationship between government and opposition. Finally, connected politicians are less educated than the average appointed official, indicating that political selection is negatively affected (Besley et al. in Econ J 121(554):F205–F227, 2011).</p>","PeriodicalId":48322,"journal":{"name":"Public Choice","volume":"167 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Public Choice","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-024-01152-6","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Using newly collected data on ties between local politicians in Italy from 1985 onwards, this paper studies the relation between cross-party connections and future career prospects. Exploiting a difference-in-discontinuities design, I find that ruling coalition members connected with the leader of the opposition in local councils are twice as likely to be promoted to the local government. The results are confirmed with a number of placebo exercises. Interestingly, the effect of connections with the leader of the rivals disappears when I consider appointments to boards of state-owned enterprises or to other councils in which the party faces different politicians as opponents. A possible mechanism that may account for these results is that connected politicians act as political brokers and smooth the relationship between government and opposition. Finally, connected politicians are less educated than the average appointed official, indicating that political selection is negatively affected (Besley et al. in Econ J 121(554):F205–F227, 2011).
期刊介绍：
Public Choice deals with the intersection between economics and political science. The journal was founded at a time when economists and political scientists became interested in the application of essentially economic methods to problems normally dealt with by political scientists. It has always retained strong traces of economic methodology, but new and fruitful techniques have been developed which are not recognizable by economists. Public Choice therefore remains central in its chosen role of introducing the two groups to each other, and allowing them to explain themselves through the medium of its pages.
Officially cited as: Public Choice
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
