REPEATED LOBBYING BY COMMERCIAL LOBBYISTS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS
构建了一个重复代理的游说模型，解释为何美国商业游说活动占比在20年间从不到一半升至60%以上，并指出被贬称为“裙带关系”的重复关系在某些情况下可能改善社会福利。
Developing a lobbying model of repeated agency, we explain previously unexplained features of the real‐world lobbying industry. Lobbying is divided between direct representation by special interests to policymakers, and indirect representation where special interests employ professional intermediaries called commercial lobbyists to lobby policymakers on their behalf. Our analytical structure allows us to explain several trends in lobbying. For example, using the observation that in the United States over the last 20 years, policymakers have spent an increasing amount of their time fundraising as opposed to legislating, we are able to explain why the share of commercial lobbyist activity in total lobbying has risen dramatically and now constitutes over 60% of the total. The key scarce resource in our analysis is policymakers' time. Policymakers allocate this resource via implicit repeated agency contracts that are used to incent special interests and commercial lobbyists to provide a mix of financial contributions and information on policy proposals. These implicit agency contracts solve both an information problem in the presence of unverifiable policy information and a contracting problem in the absence of legal enforcement. These repeated relationships, that are often described using the pejorative term “cronyism” in the popular press, may in certain circumstances be welfare improving.