Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Balles, Patrick; Matter, Ulrich; Stutzer, Alois
• 署名单位: University of Basel; University of Basel; University of St Gallen
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueae020
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 2290-2320
• 关键词: Campaign contributions; issue visibility; media; news; money; Pacs; coverage; BIAS; buy

摘要

We investigate whether US House representatives favour special interest groups over constituents in periods of low media attention to politics. Analysing 666 roll calls from 2005 to 2018, we show that representatives are more likely to vote against their constituency's preferred position the more special interest money they receive from groups favouring the opposite position. The latter effect is significantly larger when less attention is paid to politics due to distraction by exogenous newsworthy events like natural disasters. The effect is mostly driven by short-term opportunistic behaviour than the short-term scheduling of controversial votes in periods with high news pressure.