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Outside Earnings, Electoral Systems and Legislative Effort in the European Parliament

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  • Christian Staat
  • Colin R. Kuehnhanss

Abstract

Parliamentarians are often allowed to pursue other work in addition to their mandate. Using data on the 7th European Parliament (2009–14), we analyze the relationship between the outside earnings of its Members (MEPs) and their parliamentary activities. The supranational nature of the European Parliament thereby allows a novel analysis of ‘moonlighting’ free of country-specific bias. We find outside earnings to be negatively correlated with the particularly work-intensive production of draft reports and opinions. Utilizing the considerable freedom of Member States in organizing elections, we find this relationship to be dependent on the electoral system under which MEPs are elected. While the effect of the trade-off between outside and parliamentary work is predominantly negative in all other systems, outside earnings of MEPs from centralized but candidate-focused systems correlate positively with their productivity, indicating a possible benefit from selection effects.
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  • Christian Staat & Colin R. Kuehnhanss, 2017. "Outside Earnings, Electoral Systems and Legislative Effort in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 368-386, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:55:y:2017:i:2:p:368-386
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jcms.12460
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    Cited by:

    1. Nastassia Leszczynska, 2017. "Double Hat Politicians: Political Moonlighting in Wallonia," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2017-43, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Gavoille, Nicolas, 2018. "Who are the ‘ghost’ MPs? Evidence from the French parliament," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 134-148.
    3. Auerbach, Jan, 2022. "Productive Office and Political Elitism," MPRA Paper 114582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Martijn Huysmans & Niels Gheyle, 2023. "Regional representation in the European Parliament: Parliamentary Questions on Geographical Indication," Working Papers 2309, Utrecht School of Economics.
    5. Wochner, Timo, 2022. "Part-time parliamentarians? Evidence from outside earnings and parliamentary activities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

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