Private Returns to Public Office
Abstract
We study the wealth accumulation of Indian parliamentarians using public disclosures required of all candidates since 2003. Annual asset growth of winners is on average 3 to 6 percentage points higher than runners-up. By performing a within-constituency comparison where both runner-up and winner run in consecutive elections, and by looking at the subsample of very close elections, we rule out a range of alternative explanations for differential earnings of politicians and a relevant control group. The ``winner's premium" comes from parliamentarians holding positions in the Council of Ministers, with asset returns 13 to 29 percentage points higher than non-winners. The benefit of winning is also concentrated among incumbents, because of low asset growth for incumbent non-winners.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 18095.Length:
Date of creation: May 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18095
Note: CF LE LS PE POL
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Related research
Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-05-29 (All new papers)
- NEP-CDM-2012-05-29 (Collective Decision-Making)
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