This article offers a review of the recent empirical literature on lobbying within political
economy. In surveying extant research, we emphasize quid pro quo and informational …

This review identifies empirical facts about lobbying that are generally agreed upon in the
literature. It then discusses challenges to empirical research in lobbying and provides …

American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on competition. Thomas
Philippon blames the unchecked efforts of corporate lobbyists. Instead of earning profits by …

We explore the role of charitable giving as a means of political influence. For philanthropic
foundations associated with large US corporations, we present three different identification …

Existing political economy models explain the politics of trade policy using inter-industry
differences. However, this article finds that much of the variation in US applied tariff rates in …

Do lobbyists provide issue-specific information to members of Congress? Or do they provide
special interests access to politicians? We present evidence to assess the role of issue …

We develop a new and comprehensive database of firm‐level contributions to US political
campaigns from 1979 to 2004. We construct variables that measure the extent of firm …

We examine the effects of constituents, special interests, and ideology on congressional
voting on two of the most significant pieces of legislation in US economic history …

We survey the literature on firms as primary actors in trade politics. In contrast with prevailing
approaches, firm-centered models predict that trade internally divides industries and that …

How is economic policy made? In this paper we study a key determinant of the answer to the
question: lobbying by firms. Estimating a binary choice model of firm behavior, we find …