Dynamic Lobbying Conflicts

This paper analyzes a dynamic lobbying model in which two antagonistic lobbies compete with each other for a prize over two time periods that are linked through status quo bias. The attacker has to decide whether to attempt an attack on the status quo already in the first period or whether to wait. We identify how the attacker’s behavior in the dynamic model differs from that in a comparable static model. Two antagonistic effects are the “option value effect” that is similar to the real option effect in the theory of investment decisions under uncertainty; and a “defender discouragement effect” that often makes change cheaper to achieve than in a comparable static model.      

中国农业国内支持乏力及其政治经济学解释

农业是天然的弱势产业,农业发展离不开政府的大力支持,但是,我国的农业却严重缺乏政府的足够支持。经济学界对此展开了广泛的讨论,本文在描述我国农业支持现状的基础上,运用政治经济学的基本分析方法,从游说成本的角度,进一步解释了造成这种严峻现实的深层次原因。作者希望通过本文的论述,能够为政府有效解决三农问题提供有益的参考。     

DID GOOD INSTITUTIONS PRODUCE GOOD TARIFFS? EVIDENCE FROM TARIFF PROTECTION IN COLONIAL VICTORIA

Were tariff rates in the Australian colony of Victoria directed towards growth‐enhancing industries or rent seekers? Recent research suggests tariffs may be welfare enhancing if they are directed at industries with positive externalities; something more likely when institutions are strong. Using disaggregated tariff data for the years 1872, 1880, and 1890, we analyse the relationship between industry characteristics and tariffs, finding little evidence that Victorian industries with positive externalities received tariff protection. Our results throw doubt on good institutions necessarily producing good tariff outcomes and suggest the relationship between tariffs and growth is more complex than current studies assume.     

Public Affairs Management Activities of German Multinational Corporations in India

In this paper the importance of public affairs management in multinational corporations in India will be examined. After briefly discussing the state of the art in international business and society literature, a conceptual framework for public affairs management in multinational corporations will be developed. This framework serves as the theoretical basis for an empirical study among German multinational corporations in India. In the main part of this paper the results of this study will be presented and discussed. The paper ends with a critical assessment and some major implications for future studies.     

Corporate Political Activities and Oligopoly Welfare Loss

Businesses participate in political activities, suchas campaign contributions and lobbying, to influencepublic policy formulation and implementation. Usinga sample of U.S. food manufacturing industries, thisstudy measures the welfare impact of corporatepolitical activities in those industries. Empiricalanalysis shows that rent seeking was imperfect andcorporate political activities were higher in thoseindustries that were highly concentrated, large inemployee size and sales, and deeper in debt.     

Trade and associated groups in the English tourism policy arena

The role and influence of trade and associated groups in England's tourism policy environment is of increasing importance given recent changes in the consultative processes undertaken by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (the government department sponsoring the tourism industry in Parliament). Yet researchers working within the realm of tourism studies have paid little attention to their characteristics, objectives and tactics. This article, therefore, sets out to address these issues by drawing on the results of phase one of a two‐phase research project into the influence of trade and associated groups on policy development. The article reports the findings of a survey into the objectives and tactics used by the groups in policy communications and links this to structural changes in the landscape of the tourism policy. In doing this it suggests how certain relationships have developed between government and groups, how groups collaborate on policy issues and how this may have influenced the direction of tourism policy in the England. Using the results of this research and an analysis of government policy related announcements over the past two years we hypothesise on how successful the groups have been to data, and proposes areas for future research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Endogenous expropriation and political competition

We develop a game-theoretical model in which the politicians can be influenced by means of campaign contributions of special interest groups. If there is no legally binding contract, politicians have a proclivity to divert some contributions for private use. In doing so, they maximize their own utility which depends on expected election-winning premium and amount of funds misappropriated. We study the utility maximizing fraction of expropriation emerging from the equilibrium policy platform and the associated contribution level. We then compare results under alternative scenarios, namely, one single lobby group versus multiple lobby groups and one-sided lobbying versus two-sided lobbying.     

Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress

How do interest groups decide which member of Congress to target when decisions are made collectively? Do lobbying strategies change as legislation advances? Answering these questions is challenging due to a lack of systematic observations of lobbying contacts. I answer these questions using a novel data set constructed from reports submitted by lobbyists on behalf of South Korea regarding its free trade agreement with the United States for 10 years. I show that a diverse set of politicians are contacted but the timing, intensity, and strategy of lobbying contacts vary by politicians' institutional positions as well as their predisposed preferences for free trade.     

Firm-level political risk and distance-to-default

This study provides the first empirical evidence of the relationship between firm-level political risk and distance-to-default. Based on our examination of a quarterly dataset of 2727 U.S. firms covering a period from January 2002 to April 2019, we conclude that firm-level political risk is negatively associated with distance-to-default. We document three economic mechanisms through which political risk increases default risk: information asymmetry, organizational capital, and investment growth. The evidence indicates that the association is more pronounced for firms with low analysts’ forecast accuracy, organizational capital, and investment growth. Employing hand-collected data, we also reveal that firms are able to exploit their corporate lobbying to immunize themselves against default risk. Our findings are robust to different endogeneity identifications, including a natural experiment, alternative distance-to-default proxies, and different sub-samples. Overall, we present novel evidence of an adverse impact of firm-level political risk on distance-to-default and how such a negative effect can be mitigated.     

Politically influenced counterterrorism policy and welfare efficiency

The paper examines how two targeted countries strategically deploy their counterterror forces when lobbying defense firms influence counterterror provision. For proactive measures, lobbying activities in a single targeted country lessen underprovision, raise overall counterterrorism, and reduce terrorism. Welfare decreases in the lobbied country but increases in the other targeted country owing to enhanced free riding. Lobbying influence on the targeted countries' welfare is tied to terrorists' targeting preferences and how the lobbied government weighs citizens’ welfare. Lobbying in both targeted countries may result in the first-best equilibrium. International policy coordination may lead to less efficient outcomes than the noncooperative equilibrium.