Politician preferences and caps on political lobbying

Arbeitspapier

This paper extends Che and Gale (1998) by allowing the incumbent politician to have a preference for the policy position of one of the lobbyists. The effect of a contribution cap is analyzed where two lobbyists contest for a political prize. The cap always helps the lobbyist whose policy position is preferred by the politician no matter whether it is the high-valuation or the low-valuation contestant. In contrast to Che and Gale, once the cap is binding a more restrictive cap always reduces expected aggregate contributions. However, the politician might support the legislation of a barely binding cap. When politician policy preferences perfectly reflect the will of the people, a more restrictive cap is always welfare increasing. When lobbyist’s valuations completely internalize all social costs and benefits, a cap is welfare improving if and only if the politician favors the high-value policy. Even a barely binding cap can have significant welfare consequences.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series ; No. WP06/19

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Noncooperative Games
• Subject: All-pay auction ; campaign finance reform ; explicit ceiling ; Politiker ; Interessenvertretung ; Wahlkampffinanzierung ; Wohlfahrtsanalyse ; Spieltheorie ; Politisches Ziel

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Pastine, Ivan ; Pastine, Tuvana
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University College Dublin, UCD School of Economics
• (where): Dublin
• (when): 2006

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/72360
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET