Antonio Merlo () (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania) Vincenzo Galasso () (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research, Universita Bocconi) Massimiliano Landi () (Department of Economics & Statistics, Singapore Management University) Andrea Mattozzi () (Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences California Institute of Technology)
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We analyze the career profiles of Italian legislators in the post-war period. Using a unique, newly collected dataset that contains detailed information on all the politicians who have been elected to the Italian Parliament between 1948 and 2008, we address a number of important issues that pertain to their career paths prior to election to Parliament, their parliamentary careers, and their post-Parliament employment. Our data span two institutional regimes: Italy’s First Republic (1948-1994) and the Second Republic (1994-present), characterized by different electoral rules and party structures. We first present a brief overview of the Italian political system. We then provide a comprehensive view of the career profiles of Italian legislators over the entire sample period, and highlight the major differences between the First and the Second Republic. We also compare the profiles of Italian legislators to those of the members of the United States Congress. We then use our data to address a number of questions that pertain to the selection of Italian politicians, their labor market, and their overall quality. We also draw some general conclusions that contribute to the debate about the relative efficacy and desirability of alternative policies regarding the selection and the compensation of elected representatives.
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Paper provided by Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania in its series PIER Working Paper Archive with number
09-024.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo, 2004.
"Bad politicians,"
Journal of Public Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 759-782, March.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Francesco Caselli & Massimo Morelli, 2001.
"Bad Politicians,"
NBER Working Papers
8532, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)