Environmental lobbying with imperfect public monitoring of environmental quality

In this paper we present a two stage game of political lobbying for policies designed to enhance environmental quality. Unlike previous work which has tended to assume perfect monitoring of environmental quality in lobbying games we allow for imperfect monitoring of environmental quality. We characterize perfect public (politico-economic) equilibria in the game for the case of both perfect and imperfect monitoring of environmental quality and compare these with imperfect private monitoring of environmental quality. Results are discussed with respect to farmer behaviour in the context of non-point source pollution and implications for the political consequences of farm extension programmes highlighted.