TY - JOUR
T1 - Allocating access for information and contributions
AU - Austen-Smith, David
N1 - Funding Information:
An earlier version of this article, "Endogenous Informational Lobbying," was written for the FEEM conference on Pressure Groups, Self-Regulation and Collective Decision Mechanisms, Milan, Italy, January 1997. The article has benefited greatly from the comments of the FEEM conference participants, from seminars at Princeton University and George Washington University, from Jeff Banks, and especially from Tim Feddersen and two anonymous referees. Responsibility for any shortcomings of the piece rests solely with the author. Financial support of the NSF and of the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 1998/10
Y1 - 1998/10
N2 - Legislators value both campaign contributions and policy-relevant information interest groups might offer through lobbying. At the same time, there is some evidence that legislators are price setters to the extent that access to an incumbent legislator is conditional in part on making some level of campaign contribution. In this article, I consider a legislator's trade-off between granting access for informational reasons and granting access for contributions. Legislative influence in the model is exclusively through the provision of decision-relevant information, and money is used exclusively to seek access; in particular, groups cannot make contributions in exchange for policy decisions. The focus of the analysis is on the implications of the legislator's price setting on the induced pattern of demand for access and the consequences for the informational quality of subsequent legislative decisions. Moreover, although lobbyists are permitted to choose their informational source strategically, there is no possibility of dissembling when making an argument for one policy decision over another. The analysis yields both empirical predictions on the frequency and character of induced lobbying by different types of agents and provides some qualified support for limiting campaign contributions.
AB - Legislators value both campaign contributions and policy-relevant information interest groups might offer through lobbying. At the same time, there is some evidence that legislators are price setters to the extent that access to an incumbent legislator is conditional in part on making some level of campaign contribution. In this article, I consider a legislator's trade-off between granting access for informational reasons and granting access for contributions. Legislative influence in the model is exclusively through the provision of decision-relevant information, and money is used exclusively to seek access; in particular, groups cannot make contributions in exchange for policy decisions. The focus of the analysis is on the implications of the legislator's price setting on the induced pattern of demand for access and the consequences for the informational quality of subsequent legislative decisions. Moreover, although lobbyists are permitted to choose their informational source strategically, there is no possibility of dissembling when making an argument for one policy decision over another. The analysis yields both empirical predictions on the frequency and character of induced lobbying by different types of agents and provides some qualified support for limiting campaign contributions.
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U2 - 10.1093/jleo/14.2.277
DO - 10.1093/jleo/14.2.277
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032219105
VL - 14
SP - 277
EP - 303
JO - Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
JF - Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
SN - 8756-6222
IS - 2
ER -