Lobbying and the collective action problem: comparative evidence from enterprise surveys

Barber Benjamin (), Weschle Simon and Pierskalla Jan
Additional contact information
Weschle Simon: Political Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Pierskalla Jan: Political Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

Business and Politics, 2014, vol. 16, issue 2, 26

Abstract: Industry lobbying is traditionally thought of as a non-excludable good subject to collective action problems that are most easily solved by concentrated industries. However, there is very little empirical support for this hypothesis. In this paper, we address a major shortcoming of existing work on the topic: Its near-exclusive reliance on data from the US. Using comparative firm-level survey data from up to 74 countries, we construct an industry-level indicator of concentration and test its effect on firms’ lobbying activity. Using multilevel Extreme Bounds Analysis and Bayesian Variable Selection techniques to account for model uncertainty, we find no evidence that industry concentration is a predictor of lobbying activity. We discuss the implications of these non-findings for the literature and outline possible avenues for further research.

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/bap-2013-0036 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
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:bpj:buspol:v:16:y:2014:i:2:p:26:n:5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.cambridg ... usiness-and-politics

DOI: 10.1515/bap-2013-0036

Access Statistics for this article

Business and Politics is currently edited by Vinod K. Aggarwal

More articles in Business and Politics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().