EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Astroturf: Interest Group Lobbying and Corporate Strategy

Thomas Lyon () and John Maxwell

Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2004, vol. 13, issue 4, 561-597

Abstract: We study three corporate nonmarket strategies designed to influence the lobbying behavior of other special interest groups: (1) astroturf, in which the firm covertly subsidizes a group with similar views to lobby when it normally would not; (2) the bear hug, in which the firm overtly pays a group to alter its lobbying activities; and (3) self‐regulation, in which the firm voluntarily limits the potential social harm from its activities. All three strategies reduce the informativeness of lobbying, and all reduce the payoff of the public decision‐maker. We show that the decision‐maker would benefit by requiring the public disclosure of funds spent on astroturf lobbying but that the availability of alternative influence strategies limits the impact of such a policy.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1430-9134.2004.00023.x

Related works:
Working Paper: Astroturf: Interest Group Lobbying and Corporate Strategy (2004) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:13:y:2004:i:4:p:561-597

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... ref=1058-6407&site=1

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economics & Management Strategy from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:13:y:2004:i:4:p:561-597