A foot out the door: what drives bureaucratic exit into lobbying careers?

Abstract The revolving door is a potential mechanism of private influence over policy. Recent work primarily examines the revolving of legislators and their staff, with little focus on the federal bureaucracy. To analyze decisions to turnover into lobbying, we develop an argument emphasizing the (1) policy expertise acquired from federal employment; (2) the proximity of employees to political decision-making; and (3) the agency policymaking environment. Leveraging federal personnel and lobbying data, we find the first two factors predict revolving whereas the policymaking environment has an inconsistent impact. We highlight the importance of studying selection into lobbying for estimating casual effects of lobbyist characteristics on revenue and contribute to the literature on bureaucratic careers and the nature of private influence in policymaking.