Should we tax or cap political contributions? A lobbying model with policy favors and access

Cotton, Christopher

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.04.005

Cited by 86 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…So, the binding cap, once again, leads to at most one interest group hogging all the access. Hence, neither C&G (1998) nor Cotton (2009) can show the possibility of the binding cap actually resulting in lobbying entities increasing their amount of 'access-time' (as we are able to demonstrate). We thank a Referee for pointing us to the two References in this footnote.…”

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 62%

“…5 37% of the top of political donors (firms and other organizations, such as trade associations) over the period: 1989 -2012, split their campaign contributions (in the 40% to 59% range) between Republicans and Democrats (http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php). 6 While the real-world phenomenon of politicians selling access has been embraced by the literature concerning itself with modeling their (politicians') behavior -see, e.g., Cotton (2009) -it has been cast aside in the lobbying-by-firms literature. The literature on modeling a politician's behavior, however, given its focus, sidesteps the role of firms in the lobbying process (especially the opportunity cost of such activity), and hence does not uncover any related insights (such as those in this paper).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…So, the lobbyist that comes in second does not even obtain access to the politician, while he/she forks over a varying 'participation fee'. In a related line of work, Cotton (2009) examines the difference between how a cap on political contributions and a tax on such contributions affect a politician's choice between selling access and selling policy favors to two interest groups. A binding contribution limit makes it more likely that a politician will sell access rather than the policy favor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lobbying: Buying and Utilizing Access

Mayer

Mujumdar

2014

Economics

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This paper develops a lobbying-by-firms model that draws on a more realistic characterization of the lobbying process; influence-seeking requires both money to 'buy access' and managerial time to 'utilize access'. This, more realistically grounded, modeling approach furnishes theoretical support for why one encounters different numbers of lobbying firms of varying sizes in different industries, without casting the (unrealistic) lifeline of the 'money-buyspolicies' assumption or (unrealistically) casting out the role of money from the lobbying process. Theoretical legs are also furnished for the empirical finding of a negative and statistically significant (at the 1% level) relationship between industry concentration and "direct lobbying" by the industry. Additional insights emerge from the model regarding how a cap on the lobbying-contributions of firms results, in fact, in an expansion of the amount of access-time purchased by some firms, and how a decline in the world price of an industry's good can generate greater inequality in access to politicians. JEL H0 F16 L1

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Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 62%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lobbying: Buying and Utilizing Access

Mayer

Mujumdar

2014

Economics

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“…17 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. Furthermore, we show that lobbying rents are not fully dissipated, which is consistent with the empirical lobbying literature (de delivery of useful, quality information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

Groll

Ellis

2015

SSRN Journal

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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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“…Cox and Munger (1989), Endersby et al (2002), and Herrera et al (2008) consider the effects of campaign spending on voter participation. Sahuguet and Persico (2006), Milligan and Rekkas (2008), Cotton (2009), and Pastine and Pastine (2012) analyze the effect of campaign spending limits.…”

Section: Proof Of Propositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative campaigning in a probabilistic voting model

Brueckner

Lee

2015

Public Choice

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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. Harrington and Hess (1996). While their analysis explores the determinants of negative campaign spending using a classic spatial voting model, this paper relies instead on a probabilistic voting model, extending the use of this popular model to a new setting. By using two different versions of the model based on different assumptions on the targeting of campaign spending, the paper generates a host of results. However, the main lesson, which emerges in fairly robust fashion regardless of specific assumptions, is that negative campaign spending is higher for the relatively centrist candidate. The more-extreme candidate in the electoral contest devotes, by contrast, comparatively more of her funds to positive campaign spending. This result, which at first appears unrelated to the main findings of Harrington and Hess (1996) and Chakrabarti's (2007) extension of their model, is actually consistent with their results upon deeper examination. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: D700.

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Should we tax or cap political contributions? A lobbying model with policy favors and access

Cited by 86 publications

References 26 publications

Lobbying: Buying and Utilizing Access

Lobbying: Buying and Utilizing Access

Repeated Lobbying by Commercial Lobbyists and Special Interests

Negative campaigning in a probabilistic voting model

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