Clueless Politicians

Christopher Cotton and Cheng Li

No 274667, Queen's Economics Department Working Papers from Queen's University - Department of Economics

Abstract: We develop a model of policymaking in which a politician decides how much expertise to acquire or how informed to become about issues before interest groups engage in monetary lobbying. For a range of issues, the policymaker prefers to remain clueless about the merits of reform, even when acquiring expertise or better information is costless. Such a strategy leads to intense lobbying competition and larger political contributions. We identify a novel benefit of campaign finance reform, showing how contribution limits decrease the incentives that policymakers have to remain uninformed or ignorant of the issues on which they vote.

Keywords: Financial Economics; Marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2016-01
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Working Paper: Clueless Politicians (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:quedwp:274667

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.274667

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