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Interest Groups, Influence And Welfare

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  • Richard Ball

Abstract

This paper examines the social costs and benefits of special interest group political influence activities. It is commonly recognized that, to the extent that such activities induce legislators to choose policies that favor the interest group at the expense of society at large, they can reduce welfare. It may also be the case, however, that lobbying can convey information held by interest groups to policy‐makers. When costless announcements would not be credible, interest groups can signal their private information through costly influence activities. To the extent that this information enables governments to choose better policies, lobbying can enhance welfare. A simple game between a special interest group and a policy‐maker that captures this tradeoff between the distortionary costs and the informational benefits of political influence activities is developed. Welfare properties of the equilibria are analyzed, and conditions are derived under which social welfare is greater when lobbying occurs than it would be if lobbying were prohibited. In conclusion, the phenomenon analyzed in this paper is related to Bhagwati's taxonomy of DUP activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Ball, 1995. "Interest Groups, Influence And Welfare," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 119-146, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:7:y:1995:i:2:p:119-146
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1995.tb00107.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Bilgehan Karabay, 2009. "Lobbying Under Asymmetric Information," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 1-41, March.
    2. Pim Heijnen, 2013. "Informative advertising by an environmental group," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 249-272, April.
    3. Martin Gregor, 2016. "Tullock's Puzzle in Pay-and-Play Lobbying," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 368-389, November.
    4. Morten Bennedsen & Sven E. Feldmann, 2002. "Lobbying Legislatures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 919-948, August.
    5. Gregor Martin, 2015. "To Invite or Not to Invite a Lobby, That Is the Question," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 143-166, July.
    6. Cotton, Christopher, 2009. "Should we tax or cap political contributions? A lobbying model with policy favors and access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 831-842, August.
    7. Achim Voss & Mark Schopf, 2018. "Special interest politics: Contribution schedules vs. Nash bargaining," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 256-273, July.
    8. Sebastian Garmann, 2020. "Voter turnout and public sector employment policy," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 845-868, October.
    9. Grunenberg, Michael & Henning, Christian H. C. A., 2019. "Social embeddedness in stakeholder networks and legislators' policy preferences: The case of German livestock policy," Working Papers of Agricultural Policy WP2019-06, University of Kiel, Department of Agricultural Economics, Chair of Agricultural Policy.
    10. Lagerlof, Johan, 1997. "Lobbying, information, and private and social welfare," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 615-637, September.
    11. Mohtadi, Hamid & Roe, Terry, 1998. "Growth, lobbying and public goods," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 453-473, August.
    12. DAHM, Matthias & PORTEIRO, Nicolas, 2003. "The political economy of interest groups: pressure and information," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003057, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    13. Hanzhe Li, 2022. "Transparency and Policymaking with Endogenous Information Provision," Papers 2204.08876, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    14. Amin Sayedi & Jeffrey D. Shulman, 2017. "Strategic compliments in sales," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 57-84, March.
    15. Grunenberg, Michael & Henning, Christian H. C. A., 2019. "Communicational and lobbying power in German farm animal welfare politics," Working Papers of Agricultural Policy WP2019-01, University of Kiel, Department of Agricultural Economics, Chair of Agricultural Policy.
    16. Pyne, Derek, 2006. "Microfoundations of Influencing Public Opinion: Lobbying and Voting for Trade Policies," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 21, pages 551-576.
    17. Martin Gregor, 2014. "Receiver's access fee for a single sender," Working Papers IES 2014/17, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised May 2014.
    18. Martin Gregor, 2014. "Access fees for competing lobbies," Working Papers IES 2014/22, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jul 2014.
    19. Wolton, Stephane, 2016. "Lobbying, Inside and Out: How Special Interest Groups Influence Policy Choices," MPRA Paper 68637, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 2002. "Costly signaling and cheap talk in models of political influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 263-280, June.

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