Replication Data for: Revolving Door Benefits? The consequences of the revolving door for political access

Do policymakers grant greater access to organized interests employing their former colleagues? While a growing literature examines the “revolving door” between business and politics, we know little about whether organized interests can extract political favors by hiring revolvers. Combining novel data on the career trajectories of European Union officials and politicians with access data to the European Commission, we use a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate how hiring revolvers shapes access to meetings with policymakers. Surprisingly, we find limited evidence that employing politically connected staff shapes access overall. However, we uncover substantial heterogeneities in the effects, suggesting that revolvers do increase access to meetings about the broader legislative agenda when institutional friction is low. Moreover, contract lobbying firms, which arguably possess the weakest level of legitimacy, experience increased access. Our article sheds new light on the circumstances under which revolvers with political connections help private interests and have important implications for understanding the political effects of the revolving door.

政策制定者是否会为雇用前同僚的有组织利益集团提供更多接触渠道？尽管学界已有越来越多研究探讨商界与政界间的“旋转门（revolving door）”现象，但针对有组织利益集团能否通过雇用“旋转门”人员获取政治优待这一问题，我们仍所知甚少。本研究将欧盟官员与政客职业轨迹的全新数据集，与欧盟委员会（European Commission）接触记录数据相结合，采用双重差分法（difference-in-differences）估计雇用“旋转门”人员对政策制定者会晤机会的影响。令人意外的是，总体而言我们未发现雇用具有政治关联的工作人员能显著提升接触机会。但研究揭示了该效应存在显著异质性：当制度摩擦较低时，“旋转门”人员确实能提升接触更广泛立法议程相关会晤的概率。此外，可被认为合法性最弱的合同型游说公司，其接触机会反而有所提升。本文为具有政治关联的“旋转门”人员助力私人利益主体的情境提供了新的研究视角，同时对理解旋转门现象的政治效应具有重要启示意义。