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Lobbying Legislatures

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Author Info
Morten Bennedsen (Copenhagen Business School)
Sven E. Feldmann (University of Chicago)

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Abstract

We analyze informational lobbying in the context of multi-member legislatures. We show that a single decision maker and a decentralized majoritarian legislature provide widely different incentives for interest groups to acquire and transmit policy relevant information. The paper also shows a difference in the opportunity to affect policy through lobbying between a parliamentary legislature and a legislature low voting cohesion, such as the U.S. Congress. We show that the incentives to lobby a parliamentary legislature are much lower than to lobby Congress. The results provide a rationale for why lobby groups are more active in the U.S. Congress. The key institutional feature to explain the different behavior of lobby groups is the vote of confidence procedure, which creates voting cohesion in a parliamentary system across policy issues. We show that the flexibility of creating majorities in the Congress creates an incentive for interest groups to play an active role in the design of policy in the congressional system, while the voting cohesion in the parliamentary system dissuades interest group's incentive to engage in information provision.

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File URL: http://www.econ.ku.dk/cie/Discussion%20Papers/2000/pdf/2000-04.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Industrial Economics in its series CIE Discussion Papers with number 2000-04.

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Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: Jun 2000
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Publication status: Published in: Journal of Political Economy. August 2002; 110(4): 919-46
Handle: RePEc:kud:kuieci:2000-04

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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. Elhanan Helpman & Torsten Persson, 1998. "Lobbying and Legistlative Bargaining," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1837, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    Other versions:
  2. Persson, Torsten, 1998. "Economic Policy and Special Interest Politics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 310-27, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Morten Bennedsen & Sven Feldmann, 1999. "Legislative Structure, Incentives, and Informational Lobbying," Working Papers 9927, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  4. Laffont, J.-J., 1999. "Political Economy, Information and Incentives," Papers 99.516, Toulouse - GREMAQ.
    Other versions:
  5. Lohmann, Susanne, 1995. " Information, Access, and Contributions: A Signaling Model of Lobbying," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 85(3-4), pages 267-84, December.
  6. Stratmann, Thomas, 1992. "Are Contributions Rational? Untangling Strategies of Political Action Committees," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 647-64, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Weingast, Barry R & Shepsle, Kenneth A & Johnsen, Christopher, 1981. "The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 642-64, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Cotton, Christopher, 2007. "Informational Lobbying and Competition for Access," MPRA Paper 1842, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  2. Frisell, Lars & Lagerlöf, Johan N.M., 2004. "Lobbying, Information Transmission and Unequal Representation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4313, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. John M. de Figueiredo & Charles M. Cameron, 2006. "Endogenous Cost Lobbying: Theory and Evidence," Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series d05-156, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Gawande, Kishore, 2005. "The structure of lobbying and protection in U.S. agriculture," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3722, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  5. Börner, Kira, 2004. "Political Economy Reasons for Government Inertia: The Role of Interest Groups in the Case of Access to Medicines," Discussion Papers in Economics 313, University of Munich, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  6. Bugarin, Maurício & Portugal, Adriana & Sakurai, Sérgio, 2008. "Inequality and Cost of Electoral Campaigns in Latin America," Ibmec Working Papers wpe_150, Ibmec Working Paper, Ibmec São Paulo. [Downloadable!]
  7. Hein Roelfsema, 2004. "Legislative Bargaining and Lobbying in the European Union," Working Papers 04-16, Utrecht School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. Bennedsen, Morten & Feldmann, Sven E., 2002. "Lobbying and Legislative Organization The Effect of the Vote of Confidence Procedure," Working Papers 01-2002, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Matthias Dahm & Nicolás Porteiro, 2006. "Informational Lobbying under the Shadow of Political Pressure," Working Papers 06.14, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. John de Figueiredo, . "The Timing, Intensity, and Composition of Interest Group Lobbying: An Analysis of Structural Policy Windows in the States," American Law & Economics Association Annual Meetings 1082, American Law & Economics Association. [Downloadable!]
  11. Lagerlöf, Johan N.M., 2006. "A Theory of Rent Seeking with Informational Foundations," CEPR Discussion Papers 5893, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2006. "Inequality, Lobbying, and Resource Allocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 257-279, March. [Downloadable!]
  13. DAHM, Matthias & PORTEIRO, Nicolas, 2003. "The political economy of interest groups: pressure and information," CORE Discussion Papers 2003057, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  14. Portugal, Adriana C. & Bugarin, Maurício, 2007. "Electoral Campaign Financing: The role of public contributions and party ideology," Ibmec Working Papers wpe_100, Ibmec Working Paper, Ibmec São Paulo. [Downloadable!]
  15. Le Breton, Michel & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2007. "Legislative Lobbying under Political Uncertainty," IDEI Working Papers 493, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse. [Downloadable!]
  16. Brian Knight, 2005. "Estimating the Value of Proposal Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1639-1652, December. [Downloadable!]
  17. Matthias Dahm & Nicolas Porteiro, 2005. "Side Effects of Campaign Finance Reform," Discussion Papers 1408, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  18. Ernesto Dal Bo, 2000. "Bribing Voters," Economics Series Working Papers 039, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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