What do lobbyists do? Some believe that lobbyists' main role is to provide issue-specific information and expertise to congressmen to help guide the law-making process. Others believe that lobbyists mainly provide the firms and other special interests they represent with access to politicians in...

We explore the role of charitable giving as a means of political influence. For philanthropic foundations associated with large U.S. corporations, we present three different identification strategies that consistently point to the use of corporate social responsibility in ways that parallel the...

This paper analyzes a novel data set on all corporate political donations made in a post-transition country, the Czech Republic, between 1995 and 2014. Using these donations as a proxy for political connections, I assess the relationship between being connected to a political party and the...

This paper examines into the relationship between devolution, accountability, and service delivery in Pakistan by examining the degree of accessibility of local policy-makers and the level of competition in local elections, the expenditure patterns of local governments to gauge their sectoral...

This paper investigates the relationship between the size of interest groups in terms of voter representation and the interest group's campaign contributions to politicians. We uncover a robust hump-shaped relationship between the voting share of an interest group and its contributions to a...

The paper ascribes to the literature analysing the conditions leading to the break-up of nations. The model englobes the existing literature and considers two separate spaces, a state and its region, where informed and non-informed citizens cohabit. We depart in considering that noninformed...

Controversies over the promise and perils of union political influence have erupted around the U.S. This study develops the first evidence on the degree to which labor unions develop members' political leadership in the broader community by studying the relationship between state legislators'...

This study provides a comprehensive, accurate and ready-to-use dataset on the relationships between the members of the Swiss Parliament and groups of interests. We capture politicians' linkages exploiting (1) their mandates in legal entities; (2) the enterprises, associations or other...

Using a unique dataset, based on the 49th Swiss legislature, we assess lobbying effect on politicians' votes. Counselors' ties are approximated by their mandates in in legal entities. Political representatives' fidelity to their political group is measured by a dummy proximity indicator. We find...

Controversies over the promise and perils of union political influence have erupted around the U.S. This study develops the first evidence on the degree to which labor unions develop members' political leadership in the broader community by studying the relationship between state legislators'...