"Environmental
Protection: A
Theory of Direct and Indirect Competition for Political Influence",
Review
of Economic Studies, v72(1), January
2005, 269-286.
How
is it that environmental groups
can have a strong impact on environmental policy but without much
lobbying?
This paper develops a model of `direct' (lobbying the government) and
`indirect' (persuading the public) competition for political influence
and finds
that they are complementary. However, an increase in the effectiveness
of public persuasion, or a rise of public environmental awareness,
induces
substitution between the two. The findings establish that the empirical
phenomenon of lack of political contribution from environmental groups
may not be related to financial constraints, but to their greater
effectiveness
in public persuasion and the growing public environmental awareness.
“ A Model of Substitution of
Non-tariff Barriers for Tariffs, ” Canadian Journal of
Economics v.33 (4), 2000, pp1069-1090.
In this paper some coherent explanations are
suggested for tariff reductions and substitution of non-tariff barriers
for tariffs, taking into account both organized special interests and
unorganized consumer interests. The focus is on how the presence
of
informed consumers affects the political equilibrium choice of trade
policy. Three effects are identified that interact with each
other as
an incumbent government substitutes a NTB for a tariff and among other
things, it is found that an increase in foreign competition will not
cause
the government to substitute NTBs for tariffs, but a rise in the
government's
valuation of political contribution might do so.
Current Research: " Policy and Public Perception: A Theory of Political
Competition with an Endogenous Benchmark
",
The paper develops a framework
of political competition with an endogenous benchmark.
We show that
public campaigns by the government (to increase the public's
perception/belief
about the potential environmental damage of pollution) can improve the
government's bargaining position vis-á-vis
the industry lobby. Government's public
campaigns not only increase the equilibrium environmental tax but also
force
the industry lobby to increase its political contributions. Furthermore, the greater the effectiveness of
electoral campaign spending on the expected vote share, the higher the
equilibrium level of government's public campaigns and the higher the
equilibrium level of political contributions from the industry lobby.