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- Title
Self-serving legislators? An analysis of the salary-setting institutions of 27 EU parliaments.
- Authors
Mause, Karsten
- Abstract
It is often criticized in public debates that politicians in many jurisdictions have the power to set their own salaries. This paper scrutinizes this practice from a constitutional political economy perspective. A novel dataset is presented which provides an empirical overview of the methods used to set the pay for members of parliament (MPs) in the national parliaments of 27 member states of the European Union. There is considerable cross-country variation in this respect. While in the majority of national legislatures MPs to some degree decide on their own salaries (i.e., 'self-service' model), in some systems MP pay is set by bodies independent from MPs. A multiple regression analysis provides empirical support for the self-serving-legislators prediction derived from Public Choice theory: controlling for population size and living costs, salaries are systematically higher in legislatures in which MPs have some say in their own salaries. However, this result has to be interpreted with caution as (1) independent wage-setting bodies exist only in five parliaments, and (2) this study could only include MPs' basic salaries.
- Subjects
LEGISLATORS; WAGES; EUROPEAN Union; SEPARATION of powers; POLITICIANS; LEGISLATIVE bodies
- Publication
Constitutional Political Economy, 2014, Vol 25, Issue 2, p154
- ISSN
1043-4062
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10602-013-9150-y