Thanks for writing this! I take the broader point and I think you provide good reasons to think that international trade deserves more attention as an effective intervention.
I may be missing something, but I’m really not sure what to make of that $200k number. It seems low intuitively, but a little examination makes it seem even stranger. In 2018, about $3.5 billion was spent on lobbying. In the 115th congress, 2017-2019, 443 bills were passed, as in, actually became law. So it seems reasonable to say that about 200 bills became law in 2018. That’s almost twenty million dollars per bill. And that’s in a weird idealized scenario where spending on lobbying gets the bill passed and where all lobbying money is being spent on lobbying-for (not lobbying-against) and where the money is evenly divided across bills.
We have no idea what the distribution of effectiveness looks like, and I totally buy the idea that some bills can be passed with only $200k in lobbying funds, but that would be true at the tails of the distribution, not in expectation.
Thank you for your note. The 200K per bill is a rounded average based on The Business of America Is Lobbying by Lee Drutman (pp. 86-87). This number refers to the amount paid for a bill that benefits a major U.S. corporation, rather than a nation. Additionally, in his “182: I’m a Reformed Lobbyist. Ask Me Anything,” Williams reports that (corporate—high-paid) lobbyists may be paid around $500k/year. Thus, 200K would amount to about 5 months of a full time effort of a skilled lobbyist in D.C.
However, you may be right that passing a bill that would benefit a nation as opposed to a corporation may be much more expensive than passing an industrial legislation amendment. I will try to consult this number with a professor who teaches lobbying in D.C. tomorrow.
According to the professor, India could spend [hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars] on this issue, up to 5 million. Some countries that hire lobbying firms in D.C. spend a hundred thousand dollars a month. Thus, if it takes about 2 years for the bill to pass, India could spend 2.4 million.
However, by that time, India may be so developed that it will not be eligible for the GSP status anymore.. Plus, by that time, the WTO may develop a framework that assigns objective criteria to a country’s development status. The U.S. may be either mandated to by the WTO or choose to follow this framework.
Thanks for writing this! I take the broader point and I think you provide good reasons to think that international trade deserves more attention as an effective intervention.
I may be missing something, but I’m really not sure what to make of that $200k number. It seems low intuitively, but a little examination makes it seem even stranger. In 2018, about $3.5 billion was spent on lobbying. In the 115th congress, 2017-2019, 443 bills were passed, as in, actually became law. So it seems reasonable to say that about 200 bills became law in 2018. That’s almost twenty million dollars per bill. And that’s in a weird idealized scenario where spending on lobbying gets the bill passed and where all lobbying money is being spent on lobbying-for (not lobbying-against) and where the money is evenly divided across bills.
We have no idea what the distribution of effectiveness looks like, and I totally buy the idea that some bills can be passed with only $200k in lobbying funds, but that would be true at the tails of the distribution, not in expectation.
Dear Matt,
Thank you for your note. The 200K per bill is a rounded average based on The Business of America Is Lobbying by Lee Drutman (pp. 86-87). This number refers to the amount paid for a bill that benefits a major U.S. corporation, rather than a nation. Additionally, in his “182: I’m a Reformed Lobbyist. Ask Me Anything,” Williams reports that (corporate—high-paid) lobbyists may be paid around $500k/year. Thus, 200K would amount to about 5 months of a full time effort of a skilled lobbyist in D.C.
However, you may be right that passing a bill that would benefit a nation as opposed to a corporation may be much more expensive than passing an industrial legislation amendment. I will try to consult this number with a professor who teaches lobbying in D.C. tomorrow.
According to the professor, India could spend [hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars] on this issue, up to 5 million. Some countries that hire lobbying firms in D.C. spend a hundred thousand dollars a month. Thus, if it takes about 2 years for the bill to pass, India could spend 2.4 million.
However, by that time, India may be so developed that it will not be eligible for the GSP status anymore.. Plus, by that time, the WTO may develop a framework that assigns objective criteria to a country’s development status. The U.S. may be either mandated to by the WTO or choose to follow this framework.