Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: MPs for Sale?

MPs for Sale?

Sarah Nequam sends along a link to this paper by Andrew Eggers and Jens Hainmueller:

While the role of money in policymaking is a central question in political economy research, surprisingly little attention has been given to the rents politicians actually derive from politics. We use both matching and a regression discontinuity design to analyze an original dataset on the estates of recently deceased British politicians. We find that serving in Parliament roughly doubled the wealth at death of Conservative MPs but had no discernible effect on the wealth of Labour MPs. We argue that Conservative MPs profited from office in a lax regulatory environment by using their political positions to obtain outside work as directors, consultants, and lobbyists, both while in office and after retirement. Our results are consistent with anecdotal evidence on MPs' outside financial dealings but suggest that the magnitude of Conservatives' financial gains from office was larger than has been appreciated.

Bob O'H

Ah, this might explain the well-known disparity in scandal between Tories and Labour. It's well known that Tory MPs indulge in sex scandals, whereas Labour MPs are more concerned with dodgy financial deals. One Labour MP complained, "why do they get all the fun?"

James Graham

"Rent" here is being used in the strict, economic sense of the word. It isn't jargon.

Andrew

James,

"The strict, economic sense of the word": that's exactly what jargon is. From dictionary.com, the first definition of jargon:
"the language, esp. the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group: medical jargon."

This is a political science paper, so no need (in my opinion) to use jargon from another field. More to the point, this particular jargon seems to me to obscure rather than illuminate. I'd rather just say that these MPs end up with more money and leave it at that.

Anyway, there are two issues. "Rent" is definitely jargon here; the question is whether it's a good idea to use the word here. As is commonly true, jargon helps in communicating within the field and can hinder when communicating to others. More generally, jargon has the advantage of coming with a pre-existing set of associations, and also the disadvantages of that.