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Legislative Activity and Private Benefits: A Natural Experiment in New Zealand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2019

Massimo Morelli ,
Moritz Osnabrügge  and
Matia Vannoni
Massimo Morelli
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Political Sciences, IGIER, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, CEPR
Moritz Osnabrügge
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Matia Vannoni*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Economy, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: matia.vannoni@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

We examine the causal effect of legislative activity on private benefits, which have been largely neglected by previous research in legislative studies. By relying on a natural experiment in New Zealand, where randomly selected Members of Parliament (MPs) are given the opportunity to propose legislation, we find evidence for a causal relation between proposing a (successful) bill and the private benefits MPs receive, in terms of gifts and payments for services. We conclude that the allocation of private benefits depends on legislative performance.

Keywords

Natural experimentlegislative politicsprivate benefitsWestminster system
Type
Research Notes
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 565 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019.

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Supplementary material: Link

Morelli et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/51RILE
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Morelli et al. supplementary material

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