IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v82y1988i01p109-131_08.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Interest Group Politics and Economic Growth in the U.S. States

Author

Listed:
  • Gray, Virginia
  • Lowery, David

Abstract

Mancur Olson's model of economic growth has attracted great attention as a theoretical account of how interest groups influence the rate of economic growth over time. Moreover, the model appears to have received strong empirical support in Olson's tests employing U.S. state data. However, the specification of the Olson construct in these tests is insufficiently attentive to the complex causal chain implicit in Olson's argument, inadequately accounts for precisely how interest groups matter, and employs a static research design that obfuscates the cause-and-effect relationships posited by the model. We review these issues and develop a more complete specification of the Olson model. The respecified model is then tested using U.S. state data for the period of the late 1970s and early 1980s using new measures of interest-group influence.

Suggested Citation

  • Gray, Virginia & Lowery, David, 1988. "Interest Group Politics and Economic Growth in the U.S. States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 109-131, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:82:y:1988:i:01:p:109-131_08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400084240/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francis G. Castles & Steve Dowrick, 1990. "The Impact of Government Spending Levels on Medium-Term Economic Growth in the Oecd, 1960-85," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 2(2), pages 173-204, April.
    2. James W. Stoutenborough & Matthew Beverlin, 2008. "Encouraging Pollution‐Free Energy: The Diffusion of State Net Metering Policies," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1230-1251, December.
    3. Theresa Hager, 2020. "Special Interest Groups and Growth: A Meta-Analysis of Mancur Olsons Theory," ICAE Working Papers 116, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    4. Eloranta, Jari, 2004. "WARFARE AND WELFARE? Understanding 19th and 20th Century Central Government Spending," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 699, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Broscheid, Andreas, 2005. "Ending Cooperation: A Formal Model of Organizational Change in German Pharmaceutical Interest Representation," MPIfG Discussion Paper 05/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. William Pyle & Laura Solanko, 2013. "The composition and interests of Russia’s business lobbies: testing Olson’s hypothesis of the “encompassing organization”," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 19-41, April.
    7. Brunk, Gregory G. & Hunter, Kennith G., 2008. "An ecological perspective on interest groups and economic stagnation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 194-212, February.
    8. Caporale, Tony & Leirer, Jonathan, 2010. "Take the money and run: Political turnover, rent-seeking and economic growth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 406-412, November.
    9. Lane Kenworthy, 2003. "An Equality-Growth Tradeoff?," LIS Working papers 362, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Ismail M. Cole, 2023. "The political economy triangle of government spending, interest‐group influence, and income inequality: Evidence and implications from the US states," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 1122-1176, November.
    11. Ivo Bischoff, 2007. "Model Uncertainty, Political Learning, and Institutions: A Broader View on Mancur Olson's Theory of Institutional Sclerosis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(1), pages 34-49, July.
    12. Robert F. Salvino & Gregory M. Randolph & Geoffrey K. Turnbull & Michael T. Tasto, 2019. "The effects of decentralization on special interest groups," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 191-213, December.
    13. Liedong, Tahiru Azaaviele & Rajwani, Tazeeb & Lawton, Thomas C., 2020. "Information and nonmarket strategy: Conceptualizing the interrelationship between big data and corporate political activity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    14. Jac C. Heckelman, 2007. "Explaining the Rain: The Rise and Decline of Nations after 25 Years," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(1), pages 18-33, July.
    15. Coates, Dennis & Heckelman, Jac C. & Wilson, Bonnie, 2010. "The political economy of investment: Sclerotic effects from interest groups," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 208-221, June.
    16. Michele Hoyman & Jamie McCall & Laurie Paarlberg & John Brennan, 2016. "Considering the Role of Social Capital for Economic Development Outcomes in U.S. Counties," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 30(4), pages 342-357, November.
    17. Cole, Ismail M., 2014. "Short- and long-term growth effects of special interest groups in the U.S. states: A dynamic panel error-correction approach," MPRA Paper 54455, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Mar 2014.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:82:y:1988:i:01:p:109-131_08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.