Measuring the Effects of Post-Government-Employment Restrictions

The "revolving door" problem linking private interests and governmentdecision makers has become an important mechanism in the implementationof influence peddling. The "revolving door" problem is premisedon the assumption that a market exists for the services of formergovernment employees. However, no attempt has been made to providea measure of the value of these services, nor to evaluate theeffect of regulations intended to curb the problem. This articleattempts to fill this gap by utilizing an event-study methodologyto measure the effect of gaining "access" to government underalternative regulations.