In this paper, we estimate the effect of pay for politicians on who wants to be a politician. We take advantage of a …

A growing theoretical literature on the effect of politicians' salaries on the average level of skills of political … candidates yields ambiguous predictions. In this paper, we estimate the effect of pay for politicians on the level of education …

Congress). We find that reducing the relative wage of politicians would substantially reduce the duration of congressional … careers. Notably, however, the effect varies considerably across different types of politicians. A reduction in the … congressional wage would disproportionately induce exit from Congress by “skilled” politicians, Democrats, politicians who were …

Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modern democracies: there are career politicians (i ….e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave … careers of politicians in a political economy with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are …

empirical evidence shows that bad but dedicated politicians come along with good but not fully committed politicians. There is …

empirical evidence shows that bad but dedicated politicians come along with good but not fully committed politicians. There is …

Congress). We find that reducing the relative wage of politicians would substantially reduce the duration of congressional … careers. Notably, however, the effect varies considerably across different types of politicians. A reduction in the … congressional wage would disproportionately induce exit from Congress by “skilled” politicians, Democrats, and politicians who were …

only mediocre politicians, in spite of the fact that they could afford to recruit better individuals. Furthermore, we show …

Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modern democracies: there are career politicians (i ….e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave … careers of politicians in an environment with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are heterogeneous …