The Role of the Judiciary in the Public Decision‐Making Process

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the role of judicial control of lobbying activities in an endogenous policy framework, focusing on two dimensions of quality of the judiciary, namely efficiency and integrity. We present a multi-layer lobbying model where a self-interested group is allowed to influence a public decision maker -and possibly the judicial authority itself, which performs an anti-corruption task -with the payment of illegal contributions, and provide general conditions for the existence of a zero-contribution equilibrium. Furthermore, we study how sensitive the main findings are to different institutional arrangements as to judicial independence.Keywords: Illegal lobbying; Endogenous policy making; Judicial control JEL Classification: D72; D73; D78; H11; H49; H77 * We wish to thank Felix Bierbrauer, Marcello D'Amato, Valentino Dardanoni, Allan Drazen, Christoph Engel, Martin Hellwig, Giovanni Immordino, Salvatore Modica, Nicola Persico, Hamid Sabourian, Urs Schweizer and seminar/conference participants in Bonn, Pavia, Salerno and Turin for valuable comments and discussions on earlier drafts of this paper. All errors are our own. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not involve the responsibility of the institutions to which they belong.

Lobbying (strategically appointed) bureaucrats

“…Studies that deal with interest group venue choice in policy making are, e.g.,Boehmke et al (2005),Mazza and van Winden (2008),Naoi and Krauss (2009),Albanese and Sorge (2012).Lobbying (strategically appointed) bureaucrats…”