"Closing" the Revolving Door: Assessing the effects of state-level restrictions on post-governmental employment on legislator ideology and the insurance industry

This paper explores the effects of restrictions on the post governmental employment (PGE) of state legislators. Using a novel dataset I developed of state-level restrictions on legislator PGE, I employ a two-way fixed effects model to exploit differences in the timing of state PGE restrictions to test Hall's (2019) assertion that revolving door lobbyist positions are not a significant benefit of elected office. Further, following Fouirnaies and Fowler (2022), I consider the state-level regulatory climate towards property and casualty insurance as a measure of corporate influence on state government. Like past research of PGE restrictions on public utility commissioners (Law and Long 2012), I find mixed results – attempts to "close" the revolving door indeed increase legislator polarization, on average, contrary to Hall's hypothesis. However, while PGE restrictions might lower insurance premiums, this finding is complicated by the model's assumptions, and the weight of the evidence suggests PGE restrictions have null effect on insurance regulation. Overall, state lawmakers should consider policies to increase the benefits of holding elected office to ameliorate unintended consequences (i.e., heightened polarization) before attempting to "close" the revolving door