TY  - JOUR
AU  - Figueiredo,John M. de
AU  - Tiller,Emerson H.
TI  - The Structure and Conduct of Corporate Lobbying: How Firms Lobby the Federal Communications Commission
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7726
PY  - 2000
Y2  - June 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7726
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7726.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John M. de Figueiredo
The Law School
Duke University
210 Science Drive
Durham, NC 27708
Tel: 919-613-8513
E-Mail: jdefig@law.duke.edu
AB  - lobbying (internal organization vs. trade association) by firms in administrative agencies.  It explores the power and limitations of the collective action theories and transaction cost theories in explaining lobbying.  It introduces a dataset of over 900 lobbying contacts cover 101 issues at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in early 1998.  We find that the structure and conduct of large firm lobbying at the FCC is consistent with the predictions of theories of transaction costs and the main results of theories of collective action.  However, large firms do not change their behavior drastically as structures arise to remedy the free rider problem.  Small firms show no sensitivity to collective action issues or transaction cost issues in the organization or amount of their lobbying, but they do lobby less when having to reveal proprietary information. In sum, large firms behave largely consistent with theoretical predictions, while small firms do not.
ER  -