Private Influence on the Regulatory Process: Evidence From Comments on Rules

• In Event: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics & Public Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics

Abstract

A key feature of policymaking in the United States is that private actors present arguments to policymakers in an attempt to influence the specific contours of public policy -- both before and after a bill becomes law. Do policymakers respond chiefly to the political and economic leverage of the actors making those arguments, or to the content of the arguments themselves? The public nature of notice and comment rulemaking allows me to assess this question. I gather a dataset of all 47,000 comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1994 to 2017 and use text analysis to adjudicate between the mechanisms commenters use to influence bureaucrats. Four key findings emerge. First, I show that the time invariant features of organizations are an important factor in measuring the extent to which they are able to affect the implementation of public policy. Second, as the amount of data and industry specific language in a comment increases, the more likely a bureaucrat is to modify a proposed rule based on that comment. Third, the marginal benefit of commenting is lower for individuals than for organized interests. Finally, bureaucrats are more likely to incorporate commenters' arguments into rules when the SEC chairman is a Democrat. Taken together, the results are consistent with a verifiable information model of persuasion.

Author

• Steven Rashin, New York University