In the last two decades, the lobbying industry has assumed a central role among Washington’s policy-making institutions. Importantly, a large fraction of lobbyists employed in the Federal industry have experience in government positions, especially posts in Congress, the White House and leading executive agencies.
The movement of political staffers from roles in the government to lucrative jobs in the lobbying industry is often described as a ‘revolving door’. This flow of money and staffers towards Washington’s lobbying firms has led to concerns that corporations and other organisations are able to buy influence and acquire privileged access to serving politicians.
This project, led by Mirko Draca, will provide a quantitative analysis of the factors that determine staffer transitions from Capitol Hill to positions in lobbying, the private sector and other types of employment. Practically, the project will be centered on the LegiStorm database of Congressional Staffer Salaries (CSS), which reports the employment and payroll information of Congressional employees since 2000. The LegiStorm data will be matched to information on lobbying industry reports. In turn, demand shocks in the lobbying industry will be linked to turnover patterns among Congressional employees. As the 'outside' demand for particular areas of Congressional expertise shift (for example, recently in legislative areas such as healthcare and financial regulation) then employee turnover patterns could be expected to respond. Hence the main questions here are: how strong is this relationship and has the 'pull' of outside lobbying money been increasing over time?
This research builds on earlier work by Blanes I Vidal, Draca and Fons-Rosen (2010) which measured the value of Congressional connections amongst staffers-turned-lobbyists. This type of quantitative research on economics of political elites in Washington is important for shaping policies that try to reform the 'revolving door' and limit institutional corruption.
Reference:
Blanes I Vidal, Jordi; Draca, Mirko; and Fons-Rosen, Christian (2010) “Revolving Door Lobbyists”. Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper, London School of Economics.
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