Interest group politics in a federation

Guriev, Sergei; Yakovlev, Evgeny; Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.04.004

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…For example, firms willing to send representatives to working groups and committee meetings at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Russia's largest business association, can often modify or scuttle proposals, even if large members dominate the process of generating policy recommendations. 44 38 Guriev, Yakovlev, and Zhuravskaya (2010).…”

Section: Politics and Lobbying In Russia's Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The political roots of intermediated lobbying: evidence from Russian enterprises and business associations

2016

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A business enterprise interested in influencing the design, adoption or enforcement of a particular law, rule or regulation often confronts a choice. Does it lobby officials directly? Or does it do so indirectly, using a collective action group as an intermediary? We draw on data from a large, 2010 survey of enterprises across the Russian Federation to demonstrate that the propensity to engage in intermediated lobbying increases with region-level political competition. Our explanation builds on recent evidence confirming Mancur Olson's claim (1982) that less encompassing actors tend to lobby for more distortionary policies. We hypothesize that with greater political competition government officials become more responsive to encompassing voices (i.e. associations of businesses as opposed to single firms), since the electoral costs of being captured by narrower interests becomes greater. Evidence from a complementary survey of regional business association managers points in the same direction; the relative attention paid by officials to lobbying efforts by encompassing associations increases with political competition.

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Section: Politics and Lobbying In Russia's Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Olson (1982). 21Guriev, Yakovlev, and Zhuravskaya (2010);Pyle and Solanko (2013). 22 Bueno de Mesquita et al(2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The political roots of intermediated lobbying: evidence from Russian enterprises and business associations

2016

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“…The stabilization in size in the mid-1990s may have resulted from the improved political stability (Guriev, Yakovlev, and Zhuravskaya 2010), while its shrinkage from early 2000s may have resulted from the improved institutional quality and tax reforms (Kim 2011). Table 2 provides the main statistics (mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values, skewedness, and kurtosis) for every year in the sample for two variables: the informal economy and corruption (measured by the number of economic crimes registered per 100,000 people) (see Smith, Thomas, and Antoniou (2014) for a rationale).…”

Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of Russia's Informal Economy: The Impact of Corruption and Multinational Firms

Smith¹,

Thomas

2015

Journal of East-West Business

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Based on the electricity consumption approach, this study examined empirically (among other determinants) the impact of corruption and multinational firms (MNEs) on the relative size of the informal economy in Russia's regions in 1995-2012. Strong evidence is provided of the positive effect of corruption on the informal regional economies. The significant role of MNEs and regulation in curbing informal activities is revealed. A larger informal economic sector is observed in regions with a higher number of local firms and unemployment. An integrated strategy of dealing with corruption and informal businesses is suggested to be more effective in reducing informal practices.

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“…Taking Olson"s argument, however, it appears the type of interest group should be a substantial concern when assessing its impact on social welfare; a more-encompassing group may behave differently from one that is less encompassing. Guriev et al (2009) (Lehmbruch, 1999), or, in some cases, served as fronts for corrupt or profit-motivated ventures. As a rule, these early associations were neither well organized nor transparent in purpose (Sulakshin and Romanikhin, 2003).…”

Section: William Pyle and Laura Solankomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Greater use of the tax code and regulatory mechanisms to benefit Russian manufacturing was the focus of a concerted lobbying effort by the federal TPP at roughly the same time as the survey was conducted (Gosudarstvennaia promyshlennaia politika, 2004). And throughout the 1990s, many regional governments manipulated local laws and regulations to benefit narrow interests (Slinko et al, 2005;Guriev et al, 2009).…”

Section: Assessing Preferences For Free Marketsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Composition and Interests of Russia’s Business Lobbies: A Test of Olson’s 'Encompassing Organization' Hypothesis

Pyle

Solanko

2010

SSRN Journal

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Why are some lobby groups less benign in their external effects than others? Nearly three decades ago, Mancur Olson (1982) proposed that less-encompassing lobby groups with their constituents collectively representing a narrow range of sectors are more apt to seek the types of subsidies, tariffs, tax loopholes, and competition-limiting regulations that impose costs on the rest of society. To the best of our knowledge, Olson"s oft-cited hypothesis has yet to be actually tested, due perhaps to the absence of adequate data on general policy preferences of various types of lobbies. Thus, we examine a pair of surveys from 2003 and 2004 which were targeted at managers of business associations (lobby groups) and their enterprise constituents to directly test Olson"s hypothesis. Managers from a diverse array of Russian industrial firms and business associations were asked similar questions regarding their attitudes to policies that explicitly benefit well-defined sectoral or regional interests and, implicitly, impose external costs. The pattern of responses is striking. Managers of lessencompassing associations and the constituent firms of such groups are much more apt to see such policies in a favorable light. In contrast, more-encompassing associations and their member display greater skepticism toward narrowly targeted government interventions. Our results strongly support Olson"s hypothesis.

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Interest group politics in a federation

Cited by 21 publications

References 24 publications

The political roots of intermediated lobbying: evidence from Russian enterprises and business associations

The political roots of intermediated lobbying: evidence from Russian enterprises and business associations

Determinants of Russia's Informal Economy: The Impact of Corruption and Multinational Firms

The Composition and Interests of Russia’s Business Lobbies: A Test of Olson’s 'Encompassing Organization' Hypothesis

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