Exposing the Revolving Door in Executive Branch Agencies

Abstract

We develop the first comprehensive mapping of the revolving door phenomenon in the U.S. by examining the work experience in executive branch agencies of 1,910,150 individuals covering top corporate positions in 373,011 unique firms. We document that the phenomenon is prevalent, with one out of every 15 firms, and one out of every three publicly traded firms, having at least one top employee with prior work experience in U.S. executive branch agencies. On average, former regulators are hired in response to or concomitant with increases in regulation as well as concomitant with more aggressive regulator behavior in the form of a higher incidence of fines. Firms headquartered in more corrupt states, firms seemingly more corruption-prone, and established violators receive benefits in the form of a reduction in the incidence of fines after hiring former regulators from fine-imposing agencies. In contrast, we do not observe other firms receiving benefits on average.