Working Paper: NBER ID: w26287
Authors: Matilde Bombardini; Francesco Trebbi
Abstract: This paper offers a review of the recent empirical literature on lobbying within Political Economy. In surveying extant evidence, we emphasize quid-pro-quo and informational issues in special interest politics and we highlight crucial open research questions in both. The main unresolved methodological issues remain how to properly account for the impact of lobbying on which equilibrium policies are chosen and advanced, and on how distorted those equilibrium policies might be relative to the interests of the general public. Of the principal open questions within political economy, a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the welfare distortions of lobbying remains one of the most elusive
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: P16; P48
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| lobbying (D72) | public welfare outcomes (I30) |
| lobbying (D72) | policy choices (D78) |
| intensity of lobbying efforts (D72) | policy distortions (H31) |
| political connections of lobbyists (D72) | policy outcomes (D78) |
| lobbying (D72) | misallocation of resources (D61) |
| misallocation of resources (D61) | reduced aggregate productivity (O49) |
| lobbying (D72) | firm performance (L25) |