Informational Lobbying and Implementation Standards

Policymakers are often uncertain about the right course of action. To inform their decisions, policymakers might rely on information provided by interest groups (IGs). Given that their interests are often misaligned, IGs might under-provide information to policymakers. This paper explores the possibility for policymakers of committing to implementation standards prior to IGs’ lobbying, to induce more information transmission. I show that setting implementation standards ex-ante can benefit policymakers, despite possible ex-post inefficiencies, by inducing informational lobbying in cases in which IGs would not have lobbied with implementation standards set ex-post. I discuss implications of these results for constitutional design, legislative politics, and bureaucratic politics.