The Influence of Firms on Government

Abstract

While interest group explanations have considerably advanced our understanding of governmental outcomes, much remains to be understood about the specific country-level, industry-level and firm-level characteristics that underlie the influence firms have on the establishment of governmental rules, laws and regulations. In this study, we draw upon a unique database of roughly 6000 international firms to investigate the abilities of firms to affect governmental policies. We find that country-level institutional characteristics, such as the legal origin and political diversity of the firm’s home country, significantly affect the ability to influence government. We also find that industry-level characteristics, such as the number of industry competitors, and firm-level characteristics, such as size and age, are determinants of firm influence on governments.