Interest group influence and the delegation of police authority.

An interest group's choice between lobbying politicians and lobbying bureaucrats, and the decision ofpoliticians whether to delegate policy authority, are investigated simultaneously. Lobbying is modeledas strategic information transmission. By assumption only bureaucrats have the expertise to assesspolicy relevant information coming from interest groups. Politicians may therefore want to delegatepolicy authority to them, but they are aware of the different interests bureaucrats may have. Inequilibrium politicians weigh the benefits from a more informed policy decision against the shift inpolicy that is finally implemented. Delegation only occurs when the bureaucracy is not extremelybiased, the stakes of the interest group in persuading government are low, and when the group hasmoderate access to bureaucrats. Surprisingly, politicians sometimes prefer a biased bureaucracy over anunbiased one. The model predicts that in general interest groups may lobby politicians for delegation insome instances, and for no-delegation at other instances. But, under reasonable assumptions theytypically lobby politicians to induce delegation.