Systemic and Sequential Links Between Campaign Donations and Lobbying

Abstract

We study the interconnectedness of campaign contributions and lobbying—two distinct interest group activities often studied separately. We construct the most comprehensive dataset to date on the two linked political activities based on over 75 million US federal lobbying reports and campaign contribution records since 1999. To systematically analyze the interplay between campaign donations and lobbying, we compare future lobbying activities of firms that donated to a politician against a set of comparable firms with no donation history to the same politician. Our large-scale analysis demonstrates that special interest groups strategically donate to legislators who they anticipate will be involved in legislative activities pertinent to future lobbying objectives. Specifically, we find that previous donations are associated with an increase of 8–11 percentage points in the likelihood of the targeted politician’s involvement in lobbied legislative bills. The estimated effects are large, increase over time, and are particularly pronounced for committee-related activities.

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