Political Actors and Behavior

Do politicians affect income and wealth distribution above and beyond the governments that appoint them and the political parties they represent? Specifically, do politicians’ worldview and/or private economic interests bias their policy choice when in office?

The UK team is in charge of collecting the biographical data of politicians (top cabinet ministers across 50 democracies and of members of parliament in Brazil, Germany, South Africa and the UK) from the early 2000s to 2020. We have collected detailed biographical data on the gender, education, profession, political career but also positions in company and public organisation boards for the heads of government, finance, defence and foreign affairs ministers in 50 democracies. These data will allow us to test to what extent changes in capital tax are predicted by politicians’ social class and/or career prospects after they exit politics. For MPs, we collect biographical data on their gender, education and primary profession but we mostly focus on coding their disclosures to identify their private economic interests while they are in office.

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