Abstract: Die Selektion öffentlicher Bediensteter in die Politik ist ein weitverbreitetes, jedoch kaum verstandenes Phänomen. Einerseits generiert die starke Vertretung öffentlicher Bediensteter in der Politik Interessenkonflikte und weckt Bedenken bezüglich des Gewaltenteilungsprinzips....

Are ordinary citizens or political party leaders better positioned to select candidates? While the American primary system lets citizens choose, most democracies rely instead on party officials to appoint or nominate candidates. The consequences of these distinct design choices are unclear:...

We quantify the private returns and social costs of political connections exploiting a unique longitudinal dataset that combines matched employer-employee data for a representative sample of Italian firms with administrative archives on the universe of individuals appointed in local governments...