Survey of Interest Groups Influence in an Economy

Abstract

The role of special interest groups (SIGs) is a major area of research for economists, political scientists, sociologists and historians. The interest of economists mainly focus on the incentives that encourage the creation and development of these groups and the effect on domestic growth. In a pioneering book, “The rise and decline of nations”, Mancur Olson describes in-detail the macroeconomic impact of the activities of these groups. In this article, a survey is carried out with regard to the miscellaneous factors referred to in the bibliography which affect the formation of SIG's and their subsequent influence on the economy of each individual country. The aim is to underline all the variables that have been used in the literature to estimate how interest groups affect the domestic economy.

Study on the variables reflecting the action of interest groups. The case of Greek economy

“…In the bibliography review, great importance is given to the study of variables used in the international literature for special interest groups. A thorough research of the variables that have been used to study the effects of interest groups action on the countries' economies has been developed in the study of Papadakis and Atsalakis [20]. Because of the hundred different variables used in the articles, the initial purpose of this study is to focus on the variables with most references in the research articles, considering that those variables are more likely to represent the effect of interest groups.…”

“…The variables with the most references to articles as emerged from the study of Papadakis and Atsalakis 2019 [20], in descending order are: a) GDP per capita, [4,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] b) Number of interest groups, [4,22,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] c) GDP growth rate, [22,24,[30][31][32][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] d) Government spending, [4,22,32,35,[43][44][45] e) Population, [21,22,27,35,30,…”

Forecasting the effects of interest groups on Greek economy

“…The variables with the most references to articles as emerged from the study of (Papadakis and Atsalakis 2019), in descending order are: a) GDP per capita, (Mueller et al 1986, McCallum et al 1987, Nardinelli et al 1987, Wallis et al 1988, Kennelly et al 1991, Quiggin 1992, Crain et al 1999, Coates et al 2003, Knack 2003, Coates et al 2010 b) Number of interest groups, (Murrell 1984, Mueller et al 1986, Crain et al 1999, Heckelman 2000, Cole et al 2002, Bischoff 2003, Coates et al 2003a, Coates et al 2003, Horgos et al 2009, Coates et al 2010, Heckelman et al 2013 c) GDP growth rate, (Weede 1984, Weede 1986, Vedder et al 1986, Lane et al 1986, McCallum et al 1987, Chan 1987, Wallis et al 1988, Gray et al 1988, Heckelman 2000, Cole et al 2002, Knack 2003, Coates et al 2007a, Horgos et al 2009, Heckelman et al 2013 d) Government spending, Mueller et al 1986, McCallum et al 1987, Heckelman 2000…”