Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion

Christopher Cotton and Arnaud Dellis

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2016, vol. 32, issue 4, 762-793

Abstract: This article challenges the prevailing view that pure informational lobbying (in the absence of political contributions and evidence distortion or withholding) leads to better informed policymaking. In the absence of lobbying, the policymaker (PM) may prioritize more promising issues. Recognizing this, interest groups involved with other issues have a greater incentive to lobby in order to change the issues that the PM learns about and prioritizes. We show how informational lobbying can be detrimental, in the sense that it can lead to less informed PMs and worse policy. This is because informational lobbying can lead to the prioritization of less important issues with active lobbies, and can crowd out information collection by the PM on issues with more likely beneficial reforms. The analysis fully characterizes the set of detrimental lobbying equilibria under two alternative types of issue asymmetry. (JEL D72, D78, D83)

JEL-codes: D72 D78 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Working Paper: Informational Lobbying And Agenda Distortion (2015)
Working Paper: Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion (2012)
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