Revolving Door Lobbyists

Vidal, Jordi Blanes i; Draca, Mirko; Fons‐Rosen, Christian

doi:10.1257/aer.102.7.3731

Cited by 415 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Studies of lobbying in the United States often concentrate on the importance of personal contacts and access to leading politicians. For example, Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons‐Rosen () show that U.S. ex‐government staffers who become lobbyists experience an income drop of almost 25 percent when “their” elected representative leaves office—strong indirect evidence that lobbyists often sell access to leading politicians.…”

Section: Political Skills and The Revolving Doormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But comparatively little is still known about exactly who they are, what they contribute to politics and policy making, and what their main resources are. One increasing concern, however, has been the existence of a “revolving door” between politics and policy making on the one hand and the world of lobbying on the other (Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons‐Rosen ; Lindström and Bruun ). Concerns about illicit influences on political decisions and the worrisome influence of monetary resources on political processes and outcomes have been aired, not only in the United States, but across many polities and societies (OECD ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Out of the Golden Cage: PR and the Career Opportunities of Policy Professionals

Svallfors

2016

Politics & Policy

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This article focuses on “policy professionals”—people employed to affect politics and policy making rather than elected to office, and their career motivations and considerations. What do they see as career opportunities and limitations? What resources do policy professionals offer on the job market? How are status and hierarchy on their particular labor market perceived? Special attention is paid to the possible transitions from current job into other positions and arenas. The study pinpoints the “golden cage” problem: the problem for organizations positioned outside party politics to properly evaluate the distinct skills of policy professionals. The key position of the public relations agencies in this regard is highlighted. The article closes with a discussion of some democratic implications of the arguments and findings, such as anticipatory adjustment of behavior in public office, the potential merging of political elites, and the supply driven growth of the policy professional stratum. Related Articles

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Section: Political Skills and The Revolving Doormentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Out of the Golden Cage: PR and the Career Opportunities of Policy Professionals

Svallfors

2016

Politics & Policy

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“…This finding provides a new perspective to the large literature on the impact of social connections to politicians. Fisman (), Khwaja and Mian (), and Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons‐Rosen (), among others, estimate the value of connections in different contexts…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Selection in China: The Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance

Jia

Kudamatsu

Seim

2015

Journal of the European Economic Association

352

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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. Abstract Who becomes a top politician in China? We focus on provincial leaders -a pool of candidates for top political office -and examine how their chances of promotion depend on their performance in office and connections with top politicians. Our empirical analysis, based on the curriculum vitae of Chinese politicians, shows that connections and performance are complements in the Chinese political selection process. This complementarity is stronger the younger provincial leaders are relative to their connected top leaders. To provide one plausible interpretation of these empirical findings, we propose a simple theory in which the complementarity arises because connections foster loyalty of junior officials to senior ones, thereby allowing incumbent top politicians to select competent provincial leaders without risking being ousted. Auxiliary evidence suggests that the documented promotion pattern does not distort the allocation of talent. Our findings shed some light on why a political system known for patronage can still select competent leaders. * We thank Philippe Aghion, Terms of use: Documents in

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“…Our analysis illustrates how lobbyists subsidize resource constrained policymakers (Hall and Deardorff ) and captures that access to policymakers is a key resource in lobbying (Bertrand, Bombardini, and Trebbi ; Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons‐Rosen ; Hansen ) . 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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Revolving Door Lobbyists

Cited by 415 publications

References 33 publications

Out of the Golden Cage: PR and the Career Opportunities of Policy Professionals

Out of the Golden Cage: PR and the Career Opportunities of Policy Professionals

Political Selection in China: The Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance

Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

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