TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bó,Ernesto Dal
AU  - Bó,Pedro Dal
AU  - Snyder,Jason
TI  - Political Dynasties
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13122
PY  - 2007
Y2  - May 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13122
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13122.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ernesto Dal Bó
University of California, Berkeley
Haas School of Business
545 Student Services Building #1900
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900
Tel: 510 643 1606
E-Mail: dalbo@haas.berkeley.edu

Pedro Dal Bó
Department of Economics
Brown University
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-2953
E-Mail: pdalbo@brown.edu

Jason Snyder
Northwestern University School of Law
357 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611-3069
E-Mail: j-snyder@law.northwestern.edu
AB  - We study political dynasties in the United States Congress since its inception in 1789. We document historic and geographic patterns in the evolution and profile of political dynasties, study the extent of dynastic bias in legislative politics versus other occupations, and analyze the connection between political dynasties and political competition. We also study the self-perpetuation of political elites. We find that legislators who enjoy longer tenures are significantly more likely to have relatives entering Congress later. Using instrumental variables methods, we establish that this relationship is causal: a longer period in power increases the chance that a person may start (or continue) a political dynasty. Therefore, dynastic political power is self-perpetuating in that a positive exogenous shock to a person's political power has persistent effects through posterior dynastic attainment. In politics, power begets power.
ER  -