Artikel

Are political support-driven policies always bad? The case of large interest groups

The action of active interest groups (lobbies) has been traditionally considered to be a source of harmful waste for the economy which reduces social well-being. Can this analysis be adapted to the case of large unorganised groups which do (Not ask for anything directly? Or, on the contrary, does the setting up of policies which improve the situation of these large groups permit an improvement in social welfare? We start from classical (public choice) analyses of lobbying and rent-seeking developed since the 1970s, closely linked with the hypothesis of re-election-seeking politicians, before extending our analysis also to consider non-sector-specific policies and passive interest groups (notably those too large to meet the Olsonian condition of efficient collective action). Then the research question to be answered becomes whether promoting the interest of large groups can deliver social welfare as defined by the incumbent's social welfare function. We refer to the political cycles' evidence to consider that (No social welfare objective can motivate the favouring of large groups.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Journal: European Journal of Government and Economics (EJGE) ; ISSN: 2254-7088 ; Volume: 3 ; Year: 2014 ; Issue: 2 ; Pages: 138-147 ; A Coruña: Universidade da Coruña

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Thema
interest groups
lobbies
collective action
social welfare

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Lagadec, Gael
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Universidade da Coruña
(wo)
A Coruña
(wann)
2014

DOI
doi:10.17979/ejge.2014.3.2.4302
Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Artikel

Beteiligte

  • Lagadec, Gael
  • Universidade da Coruña

Entstanden

  • 2014

Ähnliche Objekte (12)