We develop a model of lobbying in which a time and resource constrained policymaker first chooses which policy proposals to learn about, before choosing which to implement. The policymaker reviews the proposals of the interest groups who provide the highest contributions. We study how policy...

An organization must decide which proposals to fund. In evaluating the proposals, the organization may rely on those applying for funding to produce evidence about the merits of their own proposals. We consider the role of a capacity constraint preventing the organization from funding all...

We develop a model of policymaking in which a politician decides how much expertise to acquire or how informed to become about issues before interest groups engage in monetary lobbying. For a range of issues, the policymaker prefers to remain clueless about the merits of reform, even when...

We develop a model of lobbying in which a time and resource constrained policymaker first chooses which policy proposals to learn about, before choosing which to implement. The policymaker reviews the proposals of the interest groups who provide the highest contributions. We study how policy...

We develop a model of policymaking in which a politician decides how much expertise to acquire or how informed to become about issues before interest groups engage in monetary lobbying. For a range of issues, the policymaker prefers to remain clueless about the merits of reform, even when...

An organization must decide which proposals to fund. In evaluating the proposals, the organization may rely on those applying for funding to produce evidence about the merits of their own proposals. We consider the role of a capacity constraint preventing the organization from funding all...

Self-interested agents (e.g., interest groups, researchers) produce verifiable evidence in an attempt to convince a principal (e.g., legislator, funding organization) to act on their behalf (e.g., introduce legislation, fund research). Agents provide less informative evidence than the principal...

A decision maker must divide a prize between multiple agents. The prize may be divisible (e.g., a budget, pork-barrel spending) in which case he prefers to award larger shares of the prize to relatively more-qualified agents, or it may be non-divisible (e.g., jobs, college admissions) in which...

In competition for access, interest groups provide contributions to a politician and those that provide the highest contributions win access. Groups with access present information that may influence the politician's beliefs about the socially optimal policy. Because equilibrium contributions...

We develop a model of lobbying in which a time and resource constrained policymaker first chooses which policy proposals to learn about, before choosing which to implement. The policymaker reviews the proposals of the interest groups who provide the highest contributions. We study how policy...