The Non-Market Competition for Land-Use: Special Interests, Influence, and Regulation

This article presents a significant and likely causal link between the influence as-serted by land-use interest groups and subsequent regulatory action. That relationship is uncovered by measuring the effects of political participation and interest group com-petition on economic outcomes. These results reveal that campaign contributions can be an effective rent seeking activity, but it is also the case that interest group com-petition greatly reduces the potential gains from political participation. Moreover, it is shown that competition often leads to a prisoners ’ dilemma for opposing interest groups. Those findings are in contrast to previous work. Additionally, the article illu-minates the nuanced role of campaign finance restrictions and compares the marginal effects of political donations between jurisdictions with and without campaign contri-bution limits. Furthermore, In the context of a regulatory signaling model, the paper casts light on the mechanism by which regulators observe firm signals