Lobbying And Vote Buying Flashcards
(33 cards)
How do individual differences differ from the real world
- politicians behave differently
- elections do not turn out as we predict
- policies implemented are different from model predictions
What is lobbying
- a selected group of the population attempting to influence a voting outcome by influencing parties or individual voters
Is lobbying spidered good or bad
- Lobbying being good or bad depends on the transparency of the party on their lobbying
- Good: Could be a group of experts on an issue informing politicians on a problem they may not have been aware of otherwise
Bad: can be seen as corrupt practise undermine the trust in politicians in voting processes
Why is lobbying sen as necessary
Groups are influencing the political desicion on situations that may gave direct effect on them
Lobbying in USA ( legal)
- It is subject to complex rules
- Interpreted as free speech under the first amendment
- Thurber (2013) lobbying estimates to involve 100000 + working lobbyists and $9 billion annual spending
Lobbying in the USA ( controversial)
- One dollar / = one vote ( some people are richer than others)
- access to lobbying is very exclusive ( you have to know people and that suggests that you know the job and the rules and the industry
- it can distort and worsen decision making ( as it is mainly the elite that have access to lobbying）
- there is a revolving door between the goverment and lobbying ( more likely to know how to lobby if you are part of the goverment)
Lobbying in the UK ( legal)
- Lobbying is seen as legal legitimate and necessary part of democratic process - and it can be used by both individuals and organisation alike
- ## Allegdally governments need access to the knowledge people that know about issues that will affect them and that’s what lobbying can bring
Why is does regulation on lobbying carry risk
It could constrict the democratic process as it excludes the less professionalised from putting their input into policy making processes
How much is lobbying worth in the UK
£1.9 billion annually by 2007 and has employed around 14,000 people
Grew rapidly through the 1990s
How has lobbying the Uk changed since April 2015
Act: TRanspacency of Lobbying, non Party campaigning and Trade Union Adminstration Act
- require registration of consultant lobbying
- or you can register in the UK lobbying register
- However the industry still remain unregulated
What is the revolving door in lobbyists
- People previously employed in government, now in the
lobbying industry - In the US, 34 of the top 50 lobbyists had such experience
(Eisler, 2007)
What are the two main views of lobbying
- expertise: using there expertise to provide the link between the expert groupant thr legislator
- connections: who you know, not what you know ( supported more by the empirical work but dosent completely discount the connections view )
Wha work did Blanes Vidal, Draco and Fons Rosen (2012) do
Panel dataset: looked at lobbying revenue and employment history ( to see gov links)
- look at what happens to rev when the persons connection in gov leaves office and if rev drops then there is evidence for the connection view and if it stays the same then the expertise view is favoured
Results: 24% drop in rev after connection leaves d’office - supporting the connection view as this is a significant drop ( sagest that lobbyists sell access to powerful politicians)
- cannot conclude that expertise dosent matter - it may be that lobbyists with more expertise are more productive
What is theory of special interest politics
- tells us how lobbying actually affects policy : benefits too small well defined organised groups - positive and better outcomes compared to the benchmark and costs to larger diffuse unorganised groups
- e.g. local public good funded by central taxation, trade protection
How does lobbying work in practise
Voters will decide on an economic policy which is of special interest to a particular group - the group will have an interest to lobby to affect the outcome
E.g certain economic policy provide benfit to a particular group
- however the cost of this economic policy will be shared across al citzens ( someone will have to bare the cost of fixing whatever problem or policy) e.g. environment regulations
How do you understand the impact of lobbying
- the social optimum of utilitarian goverment (benchmark)
- partial fiscal federalism ( centrally financed public good)
- lobbying
How to set up a lobbying model
- three groups with equal income
- the total poulation is a = 1 and he relative size of three groups a1 + a2 + a3 = 1 and y1 = y2 = y3 > 1
- look at slide 19 to explain
Look at slide 20 to 21 to see the socially optimal case
How is the centrally financed local public good lobbying work
- The public god is decide by each group individually and the funding is central via the common tax rate
The amount of the public good under partial fiscal federalism is greater than the volume of the social planer ( agents have not fully internalised the cost and therfore overspend) - whe the public good is decided by locally but finance publically we are spending more on the good
What’s is thr problem with looking a lobby model
- dosent take into consideration counter lobbying
- we assumed that only one group is allowed to lobby
- we also didn’t look at opposing lobbying
What is evidence for lobbying
Empirical evidence supports the existence of both
perspectives (expertise and connection), but estimations
(e.g. Bertrand et al (2014)) find that the monetary
premium is higher for “connections”, rather than
expertise.
It is a very rich literature: lobbying can occur ex-ante
(contributions during campaigns) or ex-post (pressure on
politicians).
What are campaign contributions
Lobbying can explain ex ante ( getting politicians elected through campaign contributions
- 2019 UK general elections ( tories 53 mil in donations labour - 25 mil and Lib Dem’s 20 mil)
- in the US 14 billion in 2020
What are the theoretical assumptions behind campaign contributions
- use a probabilistic voting model
- Assumptions: signal the quality of candidates and the more contributions the better the candidate (logic)
- campaign contributions are considered a ‘shock’ in probaistic voting theory ( pure shock) and ( relative campaign contributions)
- some groups are organised and some are not
