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The Impact of Career Politicians: Evidence from US Governors

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  • Harry Pickard

Abstract

This paper exploits the presence of Congressional experience in US governors that permits the identification of the relationship between political career experience and intergovernmental transfers. I assemble a novel dataset of governors’ political background and match this to federal transfer data from 1950 to 2008. Governors with Congressional experience have 0.8 percentage points more transfers to their state. I show evidence for one potential channel that this may act through, the federal grants system. The findings are robust to outliers in the data, selection effects, close elections and an alternative dependent variable based on a state’s share of total federal transfers

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  • Harry Pickard, 2021. "The Impact of Career Politicians: Evidence from US Governors," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 103-125, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:74:y:2021:i:1:p:103-125
    DOI: 10.1111/kykl.12253
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    Cited by:

    1. Portmann, Marco & Stadelmann, David & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2022. "Incentives dominate selection – Chamber-changing legislators are driven by electoral rules and voter preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 353-366.
    2. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 529-555, July.
    3. Zhi Wang & Miao Yu, 2022. "Political embeddedness and firms' growth," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 127-153, February.

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