IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00008063.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vote Buying: Legislatures and Lobbying

Author

Listed:
  • Dekel, Eddie
  • Jackson, Matthew O.
  • Wolinsky, Asher

Abstract

We examine the consequences of lobbying and vote buying, assuming this practice were allowed and free of stigma. Two lobbyists compete for the votes of legislators by offering up-front payments to the legislators in exchange for their votes. We analyze how the lobbyists' budget constraints and legislators' preferences determine the winner and the payments. When lobbyists are budget constrained then the preferences of all legislators can matter, and a lobbyist's relative strength increases more steeply with a budget increase than with an increase of equal magnitude to the legislators' original preferences for this lobbyist's positio. When lobbyists are not budget constrained then only the preferences of near median legislators matter and the preferences of these legislators and the budget enter equally in determining the winner.

Suggested Citation

  • Dekel, Eddie & Jackson, Matthew O. & Wolinsky, Asher, 2009. "Vote Buying: Legislatures and Lobbying," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 4(2), pages 103-128, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00008063
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00008063
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00008063
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00008063?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Persico & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2001. "The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 225-239, March.
    2. Martimort, David & Semenov, Aggey, 2008. "Ideological uncertainty and lobbying competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 456-481, April.
    3. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 1-31.
    4. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    5. Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2004. "Vote Buying," Discussion Papers 1386, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
      • Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2005. "Vote Buying," Others 0503006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
      • Jackson, Matthew O. & Dekel, Eddie & Wolinsky, Asher, 2005. "Vote buying," Working Papers 1215, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    6. Neeman, Zvika, 1999. "The Freedom to Contract and the Free-Rider Problem," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 685-703, October.
    7. Le Breton, Michel & Salanie, Francois, 2003. "Lobbying under political uncertainty," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2589-2610, December.
    8. Avinash Dixit, 1996. "Special-Interest Lobbying and Endogenous Commodity Taxation," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 375-388, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2004. "Vote Buying," Discussion Papers 1386, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
      • Jackson, Matthew O. & Dekel, Eddie & Wolinsky, Asher, 2005. "Vote buying," Working Papers 1215, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
      • Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2005. "Vote Buying," Others 0503006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. John Duggan & Jacque Gao, 2020. "Lobbying as a multidimensional tug of war," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(1), pages 141-166, January.
    3. Martimort, David, 2019. ""When Olson Meets Dahl": From Inefficient Groups Formation to Inefficient Policy-Making," CEPR Discussion Papers 13843, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Chen, Ying & Zápal, Jan, 2022. "Sequential vote buying," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. Lima, Rafael Costa & Moreira, Humberto, 2014. "Information transmission and inefficient lobbying," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 282-307.
    6. Graham Mallard, 2014. "Static Common Agency And Political Influence: An Evaluative Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 17-35, February.
    7. Martimort, David & Stole, Lars, 2011. "Public Contracting in Delegated Agency Games," MPRA Paper 32874, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    9. John Morgan & Felix Várdy, 2011. "On the buyability of voting bodies," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 260-287, April.
    10. Jussila Hammes, Johanna, 2011. "Path dependence: Biofuels policy under uncertainty about greenhouse gas emissions," Working Papers 2011:1, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    11. Mazza, Isidoro & van Winden, Frans, 2008. "An endogenous policy model of hierarchical government," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 133-149, January.
    12. Conconi, Paola, 2003. "Green lobbies and transboundary pollution in large open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 399-422, March.
    13. Cadot, Olivier & Roller, Lars-Hendrik & Stephan, Andreas, 2006. "Contribution to productivity or pork barrel? The two faces of infrastructure investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1133-1153, August.
    14. Toke Aidt, 2004. "The rise of environmentalism, pollution taxes and intra-industry trade," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-12, January.
    15. Aidt, Toke S., 1998. "Political internalization of economic externalities and environmental policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 1-16, July.
    16. Laussel, Didier & Le Breton, Michel, 2001. "Conflict and Cooperation: The Structure of Equilibrium Payoffs in Common Agency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 93-128, September.
    17. Eliste, Paavo & Fredriksson, Per G., 2002. "Environmental Regulations, Transfers, and Trade: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 234-250, March.
    18. Campante, Filipe R. & Ferreira, Francisco H.G., 2007. "Inefficient lobbying, populism and oligarchy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 993-1021, June.
    19. Canton, Joan, 2007. "Redealing the Cards: How The Presence of an Eco-Industry Modifies the Political Economy of Environmental Policies," Economic Theory and Applications Working Papers 10271, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    20. Uk Hwang & Francesco Magris, 2005. "Intergenerational Conflicts and the Resource Policy Formation of a Short-Lived Government," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 141(III), pages 437-457, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vote buying; Lobbying; Legislatures; Political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00008063. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.