Lobbying and welfare in a representative democracy

This paper studies the impact of lobbying on political competition and poli cy outcomes in a framework which integrates the citizen-candidate model of representative democracy with the menu-auction model of lobbying. Positive and normative issues are analysed. On the positive side, lobbying need have little or no effect on policy outcomes because voters can restrict the inf luence of lobbyists by supporting candidates with offsetting policy prefere nces. On the normative side, coordination failure among lobbyists can resul t in Pareto inefficient policy choices. In addition, by creating rents to h olding office, lobbying can lead to "excessive" entry into electoral compet ition.