Consequences of the Revolving Door: Evaluating the Lobbying Success of Former Congressional Members and Staff

Abstract

Both government watchdog groups and government itself have shown concern about the “revolving door” of employees from Congress to private lobbying organizations and the reverse. But virtually no one has analyzed whether this fear is justified. We take steps to fill this gap in the literature by creating a dataset that links individual lobbyists, and whether they formerly worked on Capitol Hill, to their lobbying success. Looking at all American colleges and universities as our universe, we identify (a) those who lobbied, (b) within this group, those who hired so-called “revolvers” as lobbyists, and (c) the amount of money each recieved in congressional funding. We test not only whether schools that lobby recieve more funding than schools that do not, but also whether universities that hired a revolver receive more funding than those who lobby, but do not hire a revolver. We find evidence for both propositions, and conclude that Congress and others are right to question whether revolving-door lobbyists have disproportionate success, and whether they should be regulated more heavily.