Inefficient Lobbying, Populismand Oligarchy

Campante, Filipe R. ; Ferreira, Francisco H.G.

World Bank, Washington, D.C.

关键词: ABSOLUTE ADVANTAGE;    AGENTS;    ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES;    BARRIERS TO ENTRY;    BENCHMARK;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3240
RP-ID  :  WPS3240

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The authors investigate the theoreticaleffects of lobbying and pressure group activities on botheconomic efficiency and on equity. Looking at lobbying as apolitical activity that takes place alongside production,they find that lobbies may generate economic inefficiency aspart of the process of shifting the allocation of governmentexpenditures in their favor. Outcomes of this non-electoralpolitical process will always be biased toward the groupwith a comparative advantage in politics, rather than inproduction. In a context where the main political conflictis one between "the rich" and "thepoor," political equilibria may be either populist(inefficiently pro-poor) or oligarchic (inefficientlypro-rich), depending on each group's lobbying effectiveness.