This paper develops a model of political contributions in which a politician can either sell policy favors, or sell access. Access allows interest groups to share hard information with the politician in support of their preferred policy. Here selling access maximizes policy utility, while...

This article examines several of the key hypotheses suggested by the race to the bottom theory in environmental regulation. The research studies annual state-level enforcement of federal air, water, and hazardous waste pollution control regulation, covering the period from 1985-2000....

Hybrid governance structures between markets and hierarchies in many industries, e.g., in energy and telecommunications, challenge antitrust and regulation policy. The paper focuses on the theoretical and methodological basis provided by the New Institutional Economics (NIE) for analyzing the...