Applied Economics Lunch Seminar

Du 06/02/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30

Salle R2.21

LOGEART Rosanne ()

Does Access Mean Success? Connection to Policy-Makers and Lobbying Success of Political Actors

This article aims at understanding the policy-making process by examining the relationship between access to policy-makers and lobbying success. I collect unique data on the textual content of lobbying activities and their subsequent policy changes, allowing the identification of lobbying success in 129,153 comments across 482 regulations. I match this novel data with meetings held between policy-makers and interest representatives to measure access to policy-makers. It reveals notable disparities in access, with the business sector having more access to policy-makers compared to civil society. Moreover, I find that access to policy-makers is associated with higher likelihoods of lobbying success. This result holds true when considering entities with access to policy-makers solely before the discussion of a regulation they want to influence, suggesting that reputation and connection building play a critical role. I also find that entities with more access, characterized by numerous meetings with policy-makers, are the most likely to shape policy changes. Lastly, interacting access and actor type shows that companies and business associations drive these results, experiencing higher success rates with access. In contrast, other entities do not enjoy an increased probability of success from access to policy-makers.