Resumen de Home is where the money is?: A constituency characteristics approach for analysing thedeterminants of MPs’ moonlighting

Lukas Seibert

• This study examines if socioeconomic constituency characteristics are suitablepredictors of the remunerated side jobs held by members of parliament (MPs).Utilising a self-compiled and novel dataset on the moonlighting behaviour of1,408 members of the German Bundestag from 2013 to 2021, I demonstratethat MPs from economically competitive constituencies generate higherprivate sector side incomes, particularly if they were born in that constituency.Furthermore, the quantitative analysis shows that MPs from highly educatedconstituencies tend to have lower side incomes. This finding is explained bysuggesting that highly educated constituencies pose a credible threat ofelectoral punishment for bad behaviour, leading MPs to anticipate votercontrol and thus reducing incentives to engage in moonlighting activities.However, an MP’s mandate type moderates this effect, and the results varysignificantly depending on the types of side jobs analysed.