“informational lobbying market” and can be easily incentivized by policymakers to truthfully reveal private information. We also show …

We study the role of firms in the political economy of trade agreements. Using detailed information from lobbying … reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, we find that virtually all firms that lobby on free trade agreements (FTAs …) support their ratification. Moreover, relative to non-lobbying firms, lobbying firms are larger, and more likely to be engaged …

up with two rationales that help to understand why countries nevertheless consider protectionism to be a good response to … a recession: (i) the lobbying of domestic, non-exporting firms, and (ii) the relationship between vulnerability, the …