Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion

Christopher Cotton and Arnaud Dellis

No 2013-03, Working Papers from University of Miami, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper challenges the prevailing view in the literature that informational lobbying is socially beneficial. Key to our analysis is the fact that policymakers are constrained on the number of issues they can address, which forces them to prioritize issues. Under reasonable conditions, interest groups advocating less-salient reforms produce information, inducing policymakers to prioritize those reforms instead of more-salient ones. Such distortion of the policy agenda reduces social welfare. Our story is consistent with empirical accounts of the lobbying process.

Keywords: Informational lobbying; agenda setting; information collection; persuasion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2012-09-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://www.herbert.miami.edu/_assets/files/repec/WP2013-03.pdf First version, 2012 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion (2016)
Working Paper: Informational Lobbying And Agenda Distortion (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mia:wpaper:2013-03

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