What impact do mass civil society groups have on public policy? We study this issue by analyzing opposition to national prohibition by German-American groups and associations in the early twentieth century, before and after state-sponsored suppression of them that coincided with U.S. entry to...

This paper is the first attempt to explore the impact of interest groups and transboundary pollution on the welfare effects of pollution taxes and pollution standards in the framework of strategic environmental policies. The main findings of this paper are as follows. First, without interest...

We study the influence of trade exposed producer lobby groups on national climate policies and the formation of a climate coalition if the coalition uses border carbon adjustment (BCA), protecting domestic industries. The countries regulate emissions from commodity production with carbon taxes....

Negative ESG incidents and practices have gained traction in the recent past, severely damaging the firm's reputation and survival. Firms may adopt political investment strategies to mitigate the risks associated with these negative ESG incidents. Using corporate political contributions in the...

The US sugar program has long delivered significant subsidies to a concentrated group of sugar growers at the expense of American consumers. In 2013, however, an amendment in the House of Representatives attempted to seriously reduce those subsidies. The amendment narrowly lost. A similar...

One of the central concerns about American policy-making institutions is the degree to which political outcomes can be influenced by interested parties. While the literature on interest group strategies in particular institutions - legislative, administrative, and legal is extensive, there is...

The mandated increase in segment disaggregation under SFAS 131 could have harmed shareholders by revealing proprietary information or benefited them by reducing agency problems. Using a sample of firms that lobbied against SFAS 131 on the grounds of competitive harm, I examine whether concerns...