The Effect of Lobbying Contributions on Elections

Abstract

In the U.S. elections the policies concerning energy and natural resource play important role. This fact leads to increasingly active lobbying in the energy sector. Polarized interest groups to influence the decision-makers through monetary contributions. We propose a simple common agency model to study the effect of lobbying contributions on the results of elections. This model predicts that the less conservative party receives more contributions and that contributions have little effects on the results of elections. We test empirically the predictions of the model and we find that Democrats generally receive more contributions than Republicans. We also find that the election status has little correlation with the amount of contributions.