Liberalization for Sale: Corporate Demands and Lobbying over FTAs

Michael Plouffe ()
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Michael Plouffe: Department of Political Science, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK

Administrative Sciences, 2023, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-24

Abstract: Firm-based approaches to international trade have revolutionized the study of trade politics. Corporate participation in political processes is costly, limiting access to large, productive, well-resourced, and often internationally engaged firms. This implies a pro-trade bias in corporate lobbying demands over trade policy. I examine this relationship in the case of three free trade agreements passed by the United States Congress in 2011. I combine public statements from firms on the FTAs with corporate lobbying activities and find that both lobbying firms and those that lobbied and publicly disclosed their policy positions were more productive than the typical publicly traded firm. Likewise, firms with income from foreign affiliates were more likely to be politically active than others. These results contribute to a vibrant body of research into the complex relationships firms hold with policies governing access to international markets.

Keywords: firm heterogeneity; lobbying; trade policy; trade politics; business–government relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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