Are Businesspeople Better Legislators?

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On the campaign trail, candidates often promote their business credentials and claim that success in business leads to success in politics. These claims appeal to a subset of the American electorate that distrusts “career politicians” and views business expertise as a solution to a host of problems with U.S. democracy. Yet the scholarship is mixed on whether business politicians are better legislators. We investigate the legislative records of U.S. senators (1983–2021) and find no evidence that senators with business careers are more effective legislators than their peers. This casts doubt on the claims that “probusiness” skills, talents, or personality traits give legislators an edge. However, we are unable to reject the hypothesis that business people who pursue cooperation and consensus-building—values often promoted by business Democrats—are more inclined to succeed in office. We find that Democrats with business experience are more effective than their peers and tend to be more bipartisan and less extreme in their floor voting.