I introduce a microfounded model of campaign finance with office-seeking politicians, a continuum of voters, and a … large number of heterogeneous lobbies. Lobbies make contributions to politicians according to a common agency framework …. Politicians use contributions to finance their electoral expenditures. Voters are not fooled by electoral expenditures: they are …

Using a 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 … analytical structure allows us to explain several trends in lobbying. For example, using the observation that in the U.S. over …

from 1984-2004. Our theory also predicts that special interest groups will mainly target lop-sided winners whereas general …

Politicians have multiple principals. We investigate the weights that politicians put on the revealed preferences of … highest weight of all principals and special interest groups lie in between. A politician's personal ideology plays no … substantial role in legislative decisions. We explore conflict among principals as well as heterogeneity among politicians. Our …

become about issues before interest groups engage in monetary lobbying. For a range of issues, the policymaker prefers to … leads to intense lobbying competition and larger political contributions. We identify a novel benefit of campaign finance …