TY - JOUR AU - Alston,Lee J. AU - Libecap,Gary D. AU - Mueller,Bernardo TI - Interest Groups, Information Manipulation in the Media, and Public Policy: The Case of the Landless Peasants Movement in Brazil JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 15865 PY - 2010 Y2 - April 2010 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15865 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15865.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Lee J. Alston Institutions Program Institute of Behavioral Science Department of Economics University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO 80309-0483 Tel: 303/492-4257 Fax: 303/492 2151 E-Mail: Lee.Alston@colorado.edu Gary D. Libecap Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and Economics Department University of California, Santa Barbara Bren Hall 4412 Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131 Tel: 805-893-8611 Fax: 805-893-7612 E-Mail: glibecap@bren.ucsb.edu Bernardo Mueller Department of Economics University of Brasilia Tel: 55 61 8111-0349 E-Mail: bmueller@unb.br AB - We extend the literature on interest group behavior and policy outcomes by examining how groups with limited resources (votes and campaign contributions) effectively influence government by manipulating media information to voters. Voters in turn lobby politicians to implement the group’s preferred policies. In this manner interest groups can secure favorable government actions beyond their size and wealth. This is an important contribution because of the increased role of the media in the information age and because this linkage better explains observed government policies. We develop a multi-principal, multi-task model of interest group behavior and generate the characteristics of interest groups that would be most successful using publicity to secure their policy objectives. We apply the model to the Landless Peasants’ Movement in Brazil. We detail how the Landless Peasants’ Movement molds information; show the general voter response; and examine the reaction of politicians in changing the timing and nature of policy. ER -