PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

We investigate competition between experts with different motives. A policy-maker has to implement a policy and can either acquire information herself or hire a biased but well-informed expert. We show that the expert charges a fee if interests between the agents are roughly aligned, and pays contributions in order to get the decision delegated—and thus acts as a lobbyist instead of as an advisor—if the conflict of interest is substantial and the policy is important to her. We then introduce an unbiased career-concerned expert and show that lobbying may occur because of competition. Finally, the effect of competition on societal welfare may be negative if policy is (not) important to society but the unbiased expert provides bad (good) advice.