Abstract
SUMMARYThis 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
Highlights
The professionalization of politics refers to a set of particular values and standards that politicians hold themselves to in order to increase likelihood of success in their profession (Black, 1970)
In this paper I use Congressional experience in US governors to establish a link between political career experience and intergovernmental transfers
In column (1), I estimate the effect of Congressional political experience on transfers without additional observable controls
Summary
The professionalization of politics refers to a set of particular values and standards that politicians hold themselves to in order to increase likelihood of success in their profession (Black, 1970) Beyond these values, career experience may have a role in determining how effective or successful a politician can be. In this paper I use Congressional experience in US governors to establish a link between political career experience and intergovernmental transfers. Beyond the role of partisan alignment, the relevant characteristics of the governor in the receiving state are unknown These are of interest as it allows one to build a picture of the factors that contribute to a politician’s human capital stock and explain how politicians act..
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