Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Discussion Papers on Economics,
University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

No 8/2009: Sequential legislative lobbying

Michel Le Breton, Peter Sudhölter () and Vera Zaporozhets
Additional contact information
Michel Le Breton: Toulouse School of Economics, Postal: France
Peter Sudhölter: Department of Business and Economics, Postal: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark
Vera Zaporozhets: Center for Economic Studies, Postal: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium of a sequential game-theoretical model of lobbying, due to Groseclose and Snyder (1996), describing a legislature that vote over two alternatives, where two opposing lobbies, Lobby 0 and Lobby 1, compete by bidding for legislators’ votes. In this model, the lobbyist moving first suffers from a second mover advantage and will make an offer to a panel of legislators only if it deters any credible counter-reaction from his opponent, i.e., if he anticipates to win the battle. This paper departs from the existing literature in assuming that legislators care about the consequence of their votes rather than their votes per se. Our main focus is on the calculation of the smallest budget that he needs to win the game and on the distribution of this budget across the legislators. We study the impact of the key parameters of the game on these two variables and show the connection of this problem with the combinatorics of sets and notions from cooperative game theory.

Keywords: Lobbying; cooperative games; noncooperative games

JEL-codes: C71; C72; D72

36 pages, December 1, 2009

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