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Who are the 'ghost' MPs? evidence froM the french ParliaMent

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  • Nicolas Gavoille

    (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Condorcet Center for Political Economy - CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This paper studies the characteristics of the ghost deputies of the French National Assembly, i.e. deputies who do not have any official recorded activity over a whole year. Using a rich dataset providing various information about all deputies from 1959 to 2012, the results indicate that the typical ghost deputy is an old man with a low level of schooling, member of a large party which does not support the government and who is elected in jurisdiction with a low level of political competition. However, personal characteristics are less and less correlated with performance over the years. Finally, ghost deputies face more difficulties to achieve reelection, but are penalized only at the first round, voters exclusively considering national factors at the second round.

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  • Nicolas Gavoille, 2017. "Who are the 'ghost' MPs? evidence froM the french ParliaMent," Working Papers halshs-01549022, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01549022
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01549022
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    3. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann, 2021. "Political competition and legislative shirking in roll-call votes: Evidence from Germany for 1953–2017," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 555-575, December.
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    5. Born, Andreas & Janssen, Aljoscha, 2022. "Does a district mandate matter for the behavior of politicians? An analysis of roll-call votes and parliamentary speeches," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bad politicians; Legislative activity; French politicians; Leg- islative elections; Vote-Popularity function;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets

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