The Allocation of Resources by Interest Groups: Lobbying, Litigation and Administrative Regulation

One of the central concerns about American policy-making institutions is the degree to which political outcomes can be influenced by interested parties. While the literature on interest group strategies in particular institutions - legislative, administrative, and legal is extensive, there is very little scholarship which examines how the interdependencies between institutions affects the strategies of groups. In this paper we examine in a formal theoretical model, how the opportunity to litigate administrative rulemaking in the courts affects the lobbying strategies of competing interest groups at the rulemaking stage. Using a resource-based view of group activity, we develop a number of important insights about each stage - which cannot be observed by examining each one in isolation. We demonstrate that lobbying effort responds to the ideology of the court, and the responsiveness of the court to resources. In particular, 1) as courts become more biased toward the status quo, interest group lobbying investments become smaller, and may be eliminated all together, 2) as interest groups become wealthier, they spend more on lobbying, and 3) as the responsiveness of courts to resources decreases, the effect it has on lobbying investments depends on the underlying ideology of the court.

The Allocation of Resources by Interest Groups: Lobbying, Litigation and Administrative Regulation

One of the central concerns about American policy making institutions is the degree to which political outcomes can be influenced by interested parties. While the literature on interest group strategies in particular institutions - legislative, administrative, and legal - is extensive, there is very little scholarship which examines how the interdependencies between institutions affects the strategies of groups. In this paper we examine in a formal theoretical model how the opportunity to litigate administrative rulemaking in the courts affects the lobbying strategies of competing interest groups at the rulemaking stage. Using a resource-based view of group activity, we develop a number of important insights about each stage that cannot be observed by examining each one in isolation. We demonstrate that lobbying effort responds to the ideology of the court, and the responsiveness of the court to resources. In particular, (1) as courts become more biased toward the status quo, interest group lobbying investments become smaller, and may be eliminated all together, (2) as interest groups become wealthier, they spend more on lobbying, and (3) as the responsiveness of courts to resources decreases, the effect it has on lobbying investments depends on the underlying ideology of the court

Algorithms for Optimal Numerical Quadrature Based on Signal Class Models

Tech ReportA framework is presented for constructing various types of numerical quadrature algorithms which take into account the a-priori known or estimated properties of the signal being processed. This is done by appropriately modeling the signal class to which such a signal belongs. Both linear and nonlinear signal class models are considered and wide use of generalized spine theory is made. For the nonlinear case, a new type of nonlinear generalized spline is defined

Feature Extraction Techniques for Classification and Identification of Spectral Signatures

Tech ReportSome of the results obtained at Rice University on the extraction of features from spectral signatures for the purpose of classifying and identifying these signatures are described.Air Force Office of Scientific ResearchNASACoast Guar

LM-g SPLINES

Tech ReportAs an extension of the notion of an <em>L-g</em> spline, three mathematical structures called <em>LM-g</em> splines of types, I, II and II are introduced. (partial abstract)National Science Foundatio

A recursive algorithm for digital Image Processing using Local Statistics

Tech ReportAn algorithm is presented for digital image processing based on local statistics. The algorithm constitutes a recursive implementaiton of an approach proposed and implemented nonrecursively by J.S. Lee (Naval Research Laboratory Report 8192, March 1978). Calculations show that the proposed recursion introduces considerable improvement in efficiency.Air Force Office of Scientific Researc

Design of Optimal Feature Extractors by Mathematical Programming Techniques

Tech ReportIn an automatic pattern recognition system, the processor that selects and measures features fo the data, on the basis of which classification is made, is called a "feature selector" or "feature extractor". This paper presents a mathematical programming approach for the design of a feature extractor

A Fourier-Prony Tauberian Approach to the Analysis of a Mixture of Delayed Signals

Tech ReportLet x and y be signals (i.e. real-valued functions of time) of finite duration and energy. In the present paper, we develop a frequency domain Prony approach for interpolating, or in general, approximating y(t) by ....Office of Naval ResearchAir Force Office of Scientific Researc