Interest groups, income, and competition for redistribution

Contemporary public choice brings the analytic tools of microeconomics to bear on understanding political markets. An important contribution of public choice has been to apply many of the same characteristics of individual behavior in private markets to government. The public choice approach implicitly assumes that political and economic man are one in the same; only the stage has been changed. Political man is an egoistic, rational, utility maximizer, and the political process is recast in a supply-demand framework.; The nonmarket decision process of government is approached similarly to the approach used for market decisions. Thus, the political market exhibits a preference revelation analogous to that observed in private decision making, and behavioral assumptions of individuals in private markets are carried into political markets.; This research investigates the effect of characteristics of interest groups, their incomes, and size, on political redistribution to interest groups. The model developed in this research diverges from the traditional social welfare, political preference function approach, building its foundation instead on the more recent approach described by game theory--specifically, reflecting the inherent conflict and interdependence among groups or individuals in noncooperative games.; However, the research retains some of the traditional elements of the political preference approach, by combining autonomous legislative preferences that represent the (normative) public interest with the self-interested pressure groups that prefer more to less. The model developed in this research also permits groups to differ in characteristics that describe their organizational skills or political influence, as well as income and size. Last, the research estimates empirically whether and how changing incomes play a role in political redistribution outcomes to groups.