“The political economics of EU enlargement"

Roelfsema, Hein (2003) “The political economics of EU enlargement". In: UNSPECIFIED, Nashville, TN. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

In a theoretical model we show that centralization and enlargement may cause lobbying expenditures to fall. The reason is that due mto the common pool problem associated with centralization, national policy makers in a central committee have stronger incentives to stand up for domestic special interest groups if compared to decentral decision making. Because national politicians act as agents for domestic special interest groups, this reduces the equilibrium level of compensating contributions for domestic lobby groups. Further, we argue that enlargement magnifies the common pool problem and, thus, makes national policy makers even more instrumental to special interest groups. As a result, the cost of lobbying falls.

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