Lobbying and Information in Politics

Lobbying and Information in Politics

Information, Disinformation and Lobbying in a Median Voter Model

Candidates run for (a one-shot) election, adopting a platform of a single-dimensional policy variable p ∈[0,1]. Voters with heterogeneous single-peaked preferences over policies know candidates’ announced platforms, but perceive that the actual policy which would be implemented should that candidate be elected is a random variable (with mean equal to the announced platform) whose distribution i...

Pay-to-Play Politics: Informational lobbying and contribution limits when money buys access

We develop a game-theoretic model of lobbying in which contributions buy access to politicians. The analysis considers the claim that the rich are better off because they have more access to politicians, and that contribution limits reduce the rich-interest advantage, resulting in less-skewed policy. We show that these arguments do not hold when the politician is strategic in granting access. I...

Strategic Government Behavior and Lobbying Under Asymmetric Information∗

This paper models influence activity as a dynamic game between special interest groups and a policymaker whose preferences are not known with certainty. In case of a single lobby, in a two—period model I show that the policymaker overstates her benevolence in the first period to build a reputation for being “honest” in order to withhold more rents in the second period. The lobby, recognizing th...

A Comparison of Optimal Tariffs and Welfare under No Lobbying, Domestic Lobbying, and Domestic-foreign Lobbying

Whether and what type of the lobbying-induced trade policies can improve the domestic welfare? We show that as compared to the case of no lobbying and the case of domestic lobbying, the domestic-foreign lobbying achieves the lowest tariff and may also realize the highest welfare for the domestic country. Our results suggest that the domestic-foreign lobbying may contribute to a freer trade in t...