TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Neisser, Carina
AU  - Wehrhöfer, Nils
        TI  - Outside Income as a Signal: Evidence from Politicians and Voters
        PY  - 2026/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18576
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18576
        AB  - We study how public disclosure of politicians’ outside income affects their behavior. We exploit a disclosure reform targeting German federal MPs and tax-return data in a difference-in-differences setup using unaffected state MPs as controls. MPs increase their outside income by 24%, driven by likely right-leaning MPs. A representative survey experiment uncovers that right-leaning voters interpret outside income as a signal of competence and hard work, while left-leaning voters associate it with weaker representation. Consistent with this, we show that newspapers cover right-leaning MPs’ outside activities more favorably. Our findings suggest that politicians strategically use public disclosure as a signaling tool.
        KW  - tax data
KW  - outside income
KW  - politicians
KW  - income disclosure
        ER  -