Indirect influence, lobbies interdependence and ecological protectionism

This paper analyzes the setting of sustainability standards, such as those recently implemented in Europe and in the United States, as a political compromise pressured by the lobbying of competing industries and under the indirect influence of ecologists. Using a common agency model of lobbying, we extend Yandle's theory of `Bootleggers and Baptists' of interdependence between interest groups. Paradoxically, the indirect and information-based influence of ecologists can lead to a less constraining standard. We show, in a context of trade liberalization, that this influence leads nonetheless to a tightening of standards in large countries