@techreport{NBERw4877,
 title = "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics",
 author = "Gene Grossman and Elhanan Helpman",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "4877",
 year = "1994",
 month = "October",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w4877",
 abstract = {We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a parliament.  The parliament will set two types of policies: ideological and non-ideological.  The parties have fixed positions on the ideological issues, but choose their non-ideological platforms to attract voters and campaign contributions.  In this context, we ask: How do the equilibrium contributions from special interest groups influence the platforms of the parties?  We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups.  The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.},
}