TY  - JOUR
AU  - Helpman,Elhanan
AU  - Persson,Torsten
TI  - Lobbying and Legislative Bargaining
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6589
PY  - 1998
Y2  - June 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6589
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6589.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Elhanan Helpman
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617-495-4690
Fax: 617-495-7730
E-Mail: ehelpman@harvard.edu

Torsten Persson
Torsten and Ragnar Soderberg Chair in Economic Sci
Institute for International Economic Studies
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm
SWEDEN
Tel: +46 8 163066
Fax: +46 8 6747801
E-Mail: Torsten.Persson@iies.su.se
AB  - We examine the effects of the interaction between lobbying and legislative bargaining on policy formation.  Two systems are considered: a US-style congressional system and a European-style parliamentary system.  First, we show that the policies generated are not intermediate between policies that would result from pure lobbying or from pure legislative bargaining.  Second, we show that in congressional systems the resulting policies are strongly skewed in favor of the agenda-setter.  In parliamentary systems they are skewed in favor of the coalition, but within the coalition there are many possible outcomes (there are multiple equilibria) with the agenda-setter having no particular advantage.  Third, we show that equilibrium contributions are very small, despite the fact that lobbying has a marked effect on policies.
ER  -