Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion

Abstract

We challenge the prevailing view that pure informational lobbying (in the absence of political contributions and evidence distortion or withholding) leads to better informed policymaking. In the absence of lobbying, the policymaker may prioritize more-promising issues. Recognizing this, interest groups involved with other issues have a greater incentive to lobby in order to change the issues that the policymaker learns about and prioritizes. We show how informational lobbying can be detrimental, in the sense that it can lead to less-informed policy makers and worse policy. This is because informational lobbying can lead to the prioritization of less-important issues with active lobbies, and can crowd out information collection by the policymaker on issues with more-likely beneficial reforms. The analysis fully characterizes the set of detrimental lobbying equilibria under two alternative types of issue asymmetry.

Keywords: informational lobbying, agenda setting, information collection, persuasion

JEL Classification: D72, D78, D83