Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying

Figueiredo, John de; Richter, Brian Kelleher

doi:10.3386/w19698

Cited by 31 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…In other words, satisfy the incentive compatibility condition—that is, from (A41) and (A42) it follows that V l * > V cd * > V c * > 0. This contrasts with a world of full information, where all private rents are captured by policymakers (Groll and Ellis ), and which is empirically consistent (Ansolabehere, de Figueiredo, and Snyder ; de Figueiredo and Richter ) . In summary we stress:PROPOSITION Repeated personal interactions between lobbyists and policymakers in the presence of asymmetric information, together with the resulting barriers to political entry, create private benefits for both citizens and lobbyists, and do not result in full private lobbying rent dissipation as is observed in the full information equilibrium .…”

Section: The Social Value Of Cronyismmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…The data in Table reveal several interesting features of the lobbying industry . The first observation is its size; this is a billion dollar industry with total revenues that exceed annual campaign contributions (De Figueiredo and Richter ). If we consider that this in part describes the revenues spent by the industry's clients so as to ascertain how to spend their other “influence dollars,” it may be hard to underestimate its importance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Meeting these informational requirements has reputational effects which in turn affect their profitable future access to policymakers. They have no inherent policy bias, and are not incented to do so by clients who are mostly motivated by business rather than nonbusiness issues (de Figueiredo and Richter )…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We show how both of these elements drive the observed personal relationships between lobbyists and policymakers and how there is a change in the composition of lobbying and its earned revenues. We also provide mechanisms that can explain the empirical question on whether expertise or contacts are the key lobbying resource (Bertrand, Bombardini, and Trebbi ; Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons‐Rosen ; de Figueiredo and Richter ). Furthermore, we show that lobbying rents are not fully dissipated, which is consistent with the empirical lobbying literature (de Figueiredo and Richter ), and explain with informational rents for lobbyists and not internalized policy spillovers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

Groll¹,

Ellis

2017

Economic Inquiry

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Using a model of repeated agency, we explain previously unexplained features of the real-world lobbying industry. Lobbying is divided between direct representation by special interests to policymakers, and indirect representation where special interests employ professional intermediaries called commercial lobbyists to lobby policymakers on their behalf. Our analytical structure allows us to explain several trends in lobbying. For example, using the observation that in the U.S. over the last 20 years policymakers have spent an increasing amount of their time fundraising as opposed to legislating, we are able to explain why the share of commercial lobbyist activity in total lobbying has risen dramatically and now constitutes over 60% of the total. The key scarce resource in our analysis is policymakers' time. They allocate this resource via implicit repeated agency contracts which are used to incent special interests and commercial lobbyists to provide a mix of financial contributions and information on policy proposals. These implicit agency contracts solve both an information problem in the presence of unverifiable policy information and a contracting problem in the absence of legal enforcement. These repeated relationship, that are often described using the pejorative term cronyism in the popular press, may in certain circumstances be welfare improving. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Codes: D720, D780, D830, H110, P160.

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Section: The Social Value Of Cronyismmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

Groll¹,

Ellis

2017

Economic Inquiry

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“…In the modern world, statistics are an essential weapon in the armoury of rhetoric, not least in the rhetoric of businesses and their related professional associations and advocacy organizations as they pursue the lobbying of governments and other organizations (Richardson & Coen, ; Waterhouse, de Figueiredo & Kelleher Richter, ). Lobbying activities usually come in one of three forms, being: (a) directed towards changing or eliminating some aspect of government policy activity which is perceived as unfavourable to business in general or to a specific industry or sector; or (b) focused on encouraging government to actively introduce and/or pursue policies that are favourable to business in general or a specific industry or sector; or (c) advocating the status quo for policies that governments may be inclined to change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of international employment levels in hospitality occupations using secondary statistics

Koens

Wood

2017

Journal of Tourism Research

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Frequent claims are made for the importance of the hospitality industry, and wider tourism sector, as potential and actual creators of employment. Many of these claims emanate from industry representative and advocacy organizations, often as part of their legitimate efforts to lobby governments for favourable treatment of their sectors. Good quality universal statistical data on employment in hospitality are noticeable by their absence, although information collected by bodies such as the International Labour Organization is extensive. This paper reviews the current state of data availability on global hospitality employment (with a primary focus on commercial hospitality operations) and seeks to employ these secondary sources in investigating the question as to whether we can in fact make plausible statements about the extent of such employment. This exercise is important both to contextualizing claims made for the employment generating capacity of the hospitality industry and to shedding light on the degree of seriousness with which data might be treated in wider policy contexts. The paper concludes, with cautious optimism, that commercial hospitality is a significant global employer and that the claims made for this employment by representative and advocacy organizations are plausible if treated with circumspection.

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Money in Politics

Milyo

2015

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences

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There is a disconnect between the popular understanding of the role of money in American politics and the lessons from social science research. The foundational research in this field finds that campaign spending has at best negligible impacts on election outcomes. Similarly, decades of research reveal very little evidence that campaign contributions or even lobbying has significant effects on the content of public policy. These findings are corroborated by cutting edge research on the effects of campaign finance reforms both at the federal level and in the states.

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Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying

Abstract: ABSTRACT

Cited by 31 publications

References 50 publications

Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

An analysis of international employment levels in hospitality occupations using secondary statistics

Money in Politics

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