Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/93813 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 41
Publisher: 
Sonderforschungsbereich/Transregio 15 - Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems (GESY), München
Abstract: 
Lobbyists choose what to lobby for. If they can precommit to certain policy proposals, their choice will have an influence on the behavior of opposing lobbyists. Hence lobbyists have an incentive to moderate their policy proposals in order to reduce the intensity of the lobbying contest. This logic has been explored in a number of recent papers. I reconsider the topic with a perfectly discriminating contest. With endogenous policy proposals, there is a subgame perfect equilibrium where the proposals of the lobbyists coincide and maximize joint welfare; moreover, this equilibrium is the only one that survives repeated elimination of dominated strategies. Hence there is no rent dissipation at all. A politician trying to maximize lobbying expenditures would prefer an imperfectly discriminating contest.
Subjects: 
Interest groups
Endogenous lobbying targets
Voluntary restraint
Polarization
JEL: 
D72
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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