Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2021 · Marianne Bertrand、Matilde Bombardini、Raymond Fisman、Brad Hackinen、Francesco Trebbi
中文摘要
信息是制定有效政策的核心，政策制定者往往依靠相互竞争的利益方来区分有用信息与有偏信息。本文使用一个关于2003—2016年美国联邦监管规则制定的全新综合数据集，说明这种良性竞争逻辑如何失效。营利性公司和非营利实体都积极参与规则制定过程，按理说应当提供彼此独立的观点。然而，政策制定者可能并未充分了解一些企业与非营利组织之间的资金联系——这些赠款合法且免税，却难以追踪。我们记录了三种表明此类赠款可能扭曲政策的模式。第一，企业向某一非营利组织捐款后不久，该非营利组织更有可能就该企业也曾发表意见的规则提交意见。第二，当企业就某项规则发表意见时，与其他非营利组织提交的意见相比，近期从该企业基金会获得赠款的非营利组织所提交意见的内容，在系统性上更接近该企业自身的意见。第三，当某企业近期的受赠方也就某项规则发表意见时，监管机构在最终规则中对该规则的论述与该企业意见的相似度更高。
Abstract
Abstract Information is central to designing effective policy, and policy makers often rely on competing interests to separate useful from biased information. We show how this logic of virtuous competition can break down, using a new and comprehensive data set on U.S. federal regulatory rulemaking for 2003–2016. For-profit corporations and nonprofit entities are active in the rulemaking process and are arguably expected to provide independent viewpoints. Policy makers, however, may not be fully aware of the financial ties between some firms and nonprofits—grants that are legal and tax-exempt but hard to trace. We document three patterns that suggest that these grants may distort policy. First, we show that shortly after a firm donates to a nonprofit, the nonprofit is more likely to comment on rules on which the firm has also commented. Second, when a firm comments on a rule, the comments by nonprofits that recently received grants from the firm’s foundation are systematically closer in content to the firm’s own comments, relative to comments submitted by other nonprofits. Third, the final rule’s discussion by a regulator is more similar to the firm’s comments on that rule when the firm’s recent grantees also commented on it.