A tool used by special interests to influence policies in their favor but rarely treated in the economic literature is examined. Through contributions to the pool of available information, a bias in public perceptions of policy consequences may be created and policymaking accordingly affected. The results in terms of equilibrium protection levels add to but do not overthrow those of traditional analyses involving contributions to campaign funds.The analysis also shows that as long as some influence over perceived policy consequences can be generated by special interest groups, the political power they can wield by means of campaign contributions is much stronger (and more likely to be extensively used) than that predicted by analyses focused exclusively on campaign contributions. Restrictions on one means of special interest influence can therefore yield significant reductions in both protection and the use of resources for political influence purposes.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994.
"Protection for Sale,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-50, September.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1992.
"Protection For Sale,"
NBER Working Papers
4149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)