Dynamic legislative decision making when interest groups control the agenda

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Levy, Gilat; Razin, Ronny
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2013.07.009
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 1862-1890
• 关键词: Dynamic decision making; lobbying; Influence functions

摘要

We consider dynamic decision making in a legislature, in which in each period legislators vote between the status quo (previous period's policy) and a new bill. However, the agenda formation process is captured by interest groups, that is, the new bill on the agenda is determined by an all-pay auction among these groups. We show that convergence to the median voter of the legislature arises if interest groups are patient enough but not necessarily otherwise. We characterize the bound on the speed of convergence in a family of stationary equilibria in which policy bounces between right-wing and left-wing policies. We also show that convergence may be faster if organized interest groups represent only one side of the policy space, e.g., when only business and not consumer interests are organized. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.