Revolving doors in European corproate boards

Revolving doors and politically connected boards are socially and academically relevant topics which have been widely studied for three decades. However, the research has looked at two dimensions primarily: which are the sectors in which firms hire former public officials and what is the performance of such firms. However, the overwhelming majority of such research has focused on the United States, with some exceptions regarding the EU. In this project we aim at looking at EU members states comparatively, and explore whether there are any differences between the revolving doors phenomenon within Europe, and what may be the reasons for such differences. In this project we analyse a sample of 120 indexed firms and their board directors. We are particularly interested in quantifying the number of former public sector officials on corporate boards in four European states. The research aims at explaining what determines the number of public sector officials sitting in a firm's boards. The main theoretical framework is the Varieties of Capitalism framework which will be tested for explanatory power of the heterogeneity found in the results. Thus, we expect coordinated variants of capitalism to have higher levels of revolving doors in corporate boards. (An initial pilot working paper which attempted at exploring this topic can be found here: https://www.esadeknowledge.com/view/european-revolving-doors-corporate-boards-in-germany-and-spain-193741 )