Drawing on unpublished research to be published in the journal *Annales* and carried out in various archives of the National Assembly, this paper offers an initial estimate of the income that MPs may have derived from their terms of office, from 1914 to the present day. In doing so, the study sheds light on certain fundamental changes in the nature of the political profession: how has the MP / parliamentarian / member of parliament allowance evolved? Where do elected representatives stand on the income scale of the French population? Finally, what do these changes in MP allowances tell us about the nature of MP / parliamentarian / member of parliament office as a profession?
MP / parliamentarian / member of parliament allowances and the incomes of the French people since 1914
This paper provides an estimate of the ‘real’ income earned by MPs from their parliamentary roles over more than a century, comparing it with the income of the French public. It reopens the debate on fair remuneration for politicians, the financial incentives for political engagement and, more generally, the representativeness of MPs / parliamentarians / members of parliament.
Reference IPP Policy Brief No. 91
Presentation
Key Results
- Income from parliamentary allowances continues to place MPs at the very top of the income ladder
- In 2020, MPs were therefore among the top 3 per cent of highest-paid French people
- Since the late 1990s, these incomes have fallen steadily
- Changes in elected representatives’ incomes provide insight into the status of MPs / parliamentarians / members of parliament throughout the 20th and 21st centuries
Method and Data
This study required the reconstruction of a time series of income levels derived from MP allowances since 1914. This reconstruction is based on three successive steps.
Firstly, the authors reconstructed the official amount of the MP allowance over time. As this information is laid down directly in law, it is publicly available prior to 1938. After that date, the data is only available in the archives of the National Assembly’s Questure.
Prior to 1997, not all of the allowance was intended for elected representatives; rather, it was intended to cover the costs of their mandate. The authors therefore quantified the proportion of the allowance that could be retained by MPs as income, as distinct from that intended to cover the costs of their mandate.
Finally, the goods and services provided in kind by the National Assembly were valued by the authors in order to estimate the surplus allowance that these provisions were likely to convert into income.
The methodological choices are detailed below, accompanied by the replication code:
https://osf.io/5z42a/
Eric Buge
