Economic Concentration and Political Advocacy, 1999-2017

• In Event: Buying Influence: Political Economy of Lobbying and Campaign Contributions

Abstract

Growing market concentration has led to greater scrutiny of the link between economic and political power. Many scholars and activists have sounded alarms about the dangers of monopoly for democracy. Some are calling for reforms of antitrust law to consider the political implications of greater market power. But there is little systematic evidence linking increased economic concentration to democratic harms in established democracies, or particularly linking economic concentration to a more concentrated market in political advocacy and lobbying. This paper reports on the beginnings of our effort to fill this gap in knowledge. Building on a large dataset first assembled by In Song Kim, which we have extensively cleaned up and supplemented, we document trends in lobbying of the US government over the past two decades. Our results shed light, among other things, on: aggregate and industry-specific patterns of spending, and of concentration, in lobbying; possible noncompliance with legal disclosure requirements; the identity and persistence of top lobbying firms and associations; the question of collective versus individual lobbying; the overlap between economic and political elites; the connection between industry size and the extent and concentration of lobbying; and the connection between industry concentration and the extent and concentration of lobbying. In addition, and consonant with the conference theme of methodological pluralism, we undertake a case study of the six most famous firms in the computer technology industry to assess common anecdotes about the political acculturation of new tech. Our preliminary results are both descriptively informative and capable of serving as a foundation for further theoretical and empirical work.

Authors

• Sepehr Shahshahani, Fordham Law School

• Nolan McCarty