Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/297218 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 1444
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
Industrial policies, such as infrastructure investments and export tariffs, affect the allocation of labor and incomes across sectors, attracting substantial lobbying efforts by special interest groups. Yet, the link between structural change and lobbying remains underexplored. Using more than 150 years of data on parliamentary petitions in USA and Britain, we measure historical lobbying and document several stylized facts. First, lobbying over industrial policies follows a hump-shaped path in the course of structural change, while agricultural lobbying steadily declines. Second, big capitalists (manufacturers, merchants) are most active in lobbying for industrialization. Third, industrial concentration increases progressive lobbying, while concentrated landownership slows it down. We explain these patterns in a simple model of structural change augmented with a heterogeneous agents lobbying game. Model simulations match the dynamics of structural change, inequality, and lobbying for industrialization in the British data.
Subjects: 
political economy
structural change
lobbying
wealth distribution
growth
JEL: 
D33
D72
N10
N41
O14
O41
O43
P00
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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