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Snyder (1991) - On Buying Legislatures (view source)
Revision as of 03:01, 26 September 2011
, 03:01, 26 September 2011no edit summary
[http://www.edegan.com/wiki/images/d/da/On_Buying_Legislatures_by_James_Snyder.pdf pdf of paper]
==Abstract==
This paper analyzes a simple spatial voting model that includes lobbyists who
are able to buy votes on bills to change the status q u o . T h e key results a r e :
(i) if lobbyists can discriminate across legislators when buying votes, then
they will pay the largest bribes to legislators wh o a r e slightly opposed t o the
proposed change, rather than t o legislators who strongly support o r strongly
oppose the change; (ii) equilibrium policies exist, and with q u a d r a t i c
preferences these equilibria always lie between t h e average of t h e lobbyists’
ideal points a n d the median of the legislators’ ideal points; a n d (iii)
“moderate” lobbyists, whose positions on a policy issue a r e close t o the
median of the legislators’ ideal points, will prefer the issue t o be salient, while
more extreme lobbyists will generally prefer the issue t o be obscure.
