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Lobbying and Compromise

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Author Info
Gil S. Epstein
Shmuel Nitzan ()

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Abstract

The compromise enhancing effect of lobbying on public policy has been established in two typical settings. In the first, lobbies are assumed to act as 'principals' and the setters of the policy (the candidates in a Downsian electoral competition or the elected policy maker in a citizen- candidate model of electoral competition) are conceived as 'agents'. In the second setting, the proposed policies are solely determined by the lobbies who are assumed to take the dual role of 'principals' in one stage of the public-policy game and 'agents' in its second stage. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that in the latter setting, the compromising effect of lobbying need not exist. Our reduced-form, two-stage public-policy contest, where two interest groups compete on the approval or rejection of the policy set by a politician, is sufficient to show that the proposed and possibly implemented policy can be more extreme and less efficient than the preferred policies of the interest groups. In such situations then more than the calf (interest groups) wish to suck the cow (politician) desires to suckle thereby threatening the public well being more than the lobbying interest groups. The main result specifies the conditions that give rise to such a situation under both the perfectly and imperfectly discriminating contests.

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Paper provided by CESifo GmbH in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 1413.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1413

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Related research
Keywords: public-policy contests interest groups policy makers lobbying compromise

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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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.:
  1. Gil S. Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2002. "Endogenous Public Policy, Politicization and Welfare," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(4), pages 661-677, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 2001. "Lobbying and Welfare in a Representative Democracy," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 68(1), pages 67-82, January.
  3. Epstein, Gil S. & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2002. "Politics of Randomness," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  4. Randall S. Kroszner & Philip E. Strahan, 1999. "What Drives Deregulation? Economics And Politics Of The Relaxation Of Bank Branching Restrictions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(4), pages 1437-1467, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Epstein, Gil S. & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2002. "Effort and Performance in Public-Policy Contests," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Alesina, Alberto & Cukierman, Alex, 1990. "The Politics of Ambiguity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 829-50, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Gil S. Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2003. "Political culture and monopoly price determination," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-19, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1999. "Conflict and Distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 379-415, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1996. "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 63(2), pages 265-86, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Nitzan, Shmuel, 1994. "Modelling rent-seeking contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 41-60, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Glazer, Amihai & McMillan, Henry, 1992. "Pricing by the Firm under Regulatory Threat," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(3), pages 1089-99, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Cairns, Robert D. & Van Long, Ngo, 1991. "Rent seeking with uncertain opposition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1223-1235, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Glazer, Amihai & Gradstein, Mark & Konrad, Kai A, 1998. "The Electoral Politics of Extreme Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1677-85, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Skaperdas, Stergios, 1992. "Cooperation, Conflict, and Power in the Absence of Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 720-39, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  15. Hillman, Arye L, 1982. "Declining Industries and Political-Support Protectionist Motives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1180-87, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Felli, Leonhardo & Merlo, Antonio, 2000. "Endogenous Lobbying," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
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  17. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114, February.
    Other versions:
  18. Baik, Kyung Hwan, 1999. "Rent-Seeking Firms, Consumer Groups, and the Social Costs of Monopoly," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(3), pages 541-53, July.
  19. Becker, Gary S, 1983. "A Theory of Competition among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. Epstein, Gil S. & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2005. "The Struggle over Migration Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 1533, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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