In the present paper, we analyze an original channel of interaction between politicians and lobbies i.e. the nuisance power of a lobby. Some lobbies are influencing public policies just because they are able to impact negatively the image of a politician. More particularly, we develop a setting in which unions may transmit some information to the voters about the quality of the government via a costly signal i.e. a strike. In our setting unions represent sectors of the economy. An incumbent government seeking reelection allocates a fixed budget among several unionized sectors. Strikes are costly and transmit information to voters about the quality of the government. The politician may have interest to distort the budget allocation away from the efficient one in order to maximize his/her probability of reelection. In most cases a hostile receive receives more than a neutral/friendly one.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
6233.
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)
Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1999.
"Competing for Endorsements,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 501-524, June.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions: