IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/thk/wpaper/inetwp139.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shadow Lobbyists

Author

Listed:
  • Rocco d`Este

    (University of Sussex)

  • Mirko Draca

    (University of Warwick)

  • Christian Fons-Rosen

    (University of California, Merced.)

Abstract

Special interest influence via lobbying is increasingly controversial and legislative efforts to deal with this issue have centered on the principle of transparency. In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of the current regulatory framework provided by the US Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). Specifically, we study the role of ex-Congressional officials who join US lobbying firms in positions that could be related to lobbying activity but without officially registering as lobbyists themselves. We find that firm lobbying revenues increase significantly when these potential `shadow lobbyists` join, with effects in the range of 10-20%. This shadow lobbyist revenue effect is comparable to the effect of a registered lobbyist at the median of the industry skill distribution. As such, it is challenging to reconcile the measured shadow lobbyist effect with the 20% working time threshold for registering as a lobbyist. Based on our estimates, the contribution of unregistered ex-Congressional officials could explain 4.9% of the increase in sectoral revenues, compared to 24.0% for the group of registered officials.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocco d`Este & Mirko Draca & Christian Fons-Rosen, 2020. "Shadow Lobbyists," Working Papers Series inetwp139, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    • Handle: RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp139
    DOI: 10.36687/inetwp139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.36687/inetwp139
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.36687/inetwp139?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. Matilde Bombardini & Francesco Trebbi, 2020. "Empirical Models of Lobbying," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 391-413, August.
    2. Timothy Besley, 2005. "Political Selection," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 43-60, Summer.
    3. Thomas Groll & Maggie McKinley, 2015. "Modern Lobbying: A Relationship Market," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(03), pages 15-22, October.
    4. Stefano DellaVigna & Ruben Durante & Brian Knight & Eliana La Ferrara, 2016. "Market-Based Lobbying: Evidence from Advertising Spending in Italy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 224-256, January.
    5. William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln & Prachi Mishra, 2014. "The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 343-379, November.
    6. Christopher Cotton, 2016. "Competing for Attention: Lobbying Time-Constrained Politicians," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(4), pages 642-665, August.
    7. Christopher S. Cotton & Arnaud Déllis, 2016. "Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 762-793.
    8. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    9. repec:ces:ifodic:v:13:y:2015:i:3:p:19172601 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Karam Kang, 2016. "Policy Influence and Private Returns from Lobbying in the Energy Sector," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 269-305.
    11. Marianne Bertrand & Matilde Bombardini & Francesco Trebbi, 2014. "Is It Whom You Know or What You Know? An Empirical Assessment of the Lobbying Process," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 3885-3920, December.
    12. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2006. "Did Iraq Cheat the United Nations? Underpricing, Bribes, and the Oil for Food Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1211-1248.
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6l0phu0dat8eg98t75kpqihcid is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Wei-Fong Pan, 2023. "Does a firm’s lobbying activity respond to its peers’ lobbying activity?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 194(3), pages 297-324, March.
    2. Olimpia Cutinelli Rendina, 2023. "Lobbying or Innovation: Who Does What Against Foreign Competition," Working Papers halshs-03970033, HAL.
    3. Stefano Barbieri & Kai A. Konrad & David A. Malueg, 2020. "Preemption contests between groups," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(3), pages 934-961, September.
    4. Olimpia Cutinelli Rendina, 2023. "Lobbying or Innovation: Who Does What Against Foreign Competition," PSE Working Papers halshs-03970033, HAL.
    5. Yuting Gao, 2022. "Lobbying for Trade Liberalization and its Policy Influence," CAEPR Working Papers 2022-006 Classification-D, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    6. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Formal Theories of Special Interest Influence," SocArXiv 47e26, Center for Open Science.
    7. Thomas Groll & Christopher J. Ellis, 2017. "Repeated Lobbying By Commercial Lobbyists And Special Interests," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1868-1897, October.
    8. Igan, Deniz & Lambert, Thomas & Wagner, Wolf & Zhang, Eden Quxian, 2022. "Winning connections? Special interests and the sale of failed banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    9. Ulrich Matter & Paolo Roberti & Michaela Slotwinski, 2019. "Vote Buying in the US Congress," CESifo Working Paper Series 7841, CESifo.
    10. Miguel Espinosa, 2021. "Labor Boundaries and Skills: The Case of Lobbyists," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1586-1607, March.
    11. Christopher J. Ellis & Thomas Groll, 2018. "Who Lobbies Whom? Special Interests and Hired Guns," CESifo Working Paper Series 7367, CESifo.
    12. David P Baron, 2019. "Lobbying dynamics," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 403-452, July.
    13. Matilde Bombardini & Francesco Trebbi, 2020. "Empirical Models of Lobbying," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 391-413, August.
    14. Francesco Trebbi & Miao Ben Zhang, 2022. "The Cost of Regulatory Compliance in the United States," NBER Working Papers 30691, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Anne-Laure Delatte & Adrien Matray & Noémie Pinardon-Touati, 2020. "Private Credit Under Political Influence: Evidence from France," Working Papers 2020-56, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    16. Yan Leung Cheung & P. Raghavendra Rau & Aris Stouraitis, 2012. "How much do firms pay as bribes and what benefits do they get? Evidence from corruption cases worldwide," NBER Working Papers 17981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. John M. de Figueiredo & Brian Kelleher Richter, 2013. "Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying," NBER Working Papers 19698, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Ilona Babenko & Viktar Fedaseyeu & Song Zhang, 2017. "Executives In Politics," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1762, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    19. Ravi Radhakrishnan, 2022. "Public expenditure allocation, lobbying, and growth," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(4), pages 756-780, August.
    20. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira & Allan Drazen, 2018. "A Theory of Small Campaign Contributions," NBER Working Papers 24413, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lobbying; Revolving Door; Political Money;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:thk:wpaper:inetwp139. 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: Pia Malaney (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inetnus.html .

    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.