Partisanship, expertise, or connections? A conjoint survey experiment on lobbyist hiring decisions
通过联合调查实验，研究组织在雇佣说客时对专业知识、人脉和意识形态偏好的需求，发现组织更看重政策专业知识和必要人脉，但人脉并不比专业知识更有价值，且意识形态偏好受组织与执政党一致性影响。
Abstract Lobbyists are important agents of organized interests. While prior studies have investigated the observed hiring patterns of interest groups, conclusions about the demand for lobbyist characteristics may be confounded by the availability of lobbyists with certain characteristics. To assess the demand for lobbyists with expertise, connections, and who share groups’ preferences, we use a conjoint survey experiment to examine the hiring preferences for lobbyists. We find that organized interests prefer lobbyists with policy-specific expertise and the necessary connections to get access to decision-makers, but find little evidence that connections are more valuable than expertise. We also find that organized interests prefer lobbyists who share their political ideology, but that this preference diminishes when the hiring organization is not aligned ideologically with the party in unified control of government. Overall, our study paints a more nuanced picture of the role of preferences and connections in lobbying than many would expect.