Economic Theory of Lobbying: Groups and Innovation

This dissertation critically evaluates political-economic research on lobbying and contrasts isolated welfare-economic theory with a contextual theory based on the roots of political economy and ordoliberalism. It argues that it is necessary to revisit the question of the nature of lobbying and to bring social interactions back to the forefront of the analysis. The dissertation is primarily rooted in political economy, ordoliberalism, entrepreneurship research, and contextual economics. The first two articles of the dissertation take a systems theory perspective on lobbying and make a theoretical contribution to the impact of lobbying at the system and actor levels. Furthermore, lobbying rules are found to place a strong focus on negative regulation (prohibitions) and increasing transparency, but at the same time to lack ideas with regard to positive, enabling rules of lobbying. Therefore, the existing set of rules cannot sufficiently promote the productive characteristics of lobbying. In the third article, initial drafts for such rules are developed.