Incidental Representation: Consumers, Big Retail, and Trade Policy

• In Event: U.S. Trade Politics

Abstract

How do weak interests get represented in politics? Producers seeking protection from import competition have the incentive and capability to lobby for favorable economic policy. Consumers, the beneficiaries of free trade, are the archetypal diffuse interest, being too dispersed and numerous to organize collectively. But trade barriers on consumer goods have nevertheless decreased in recent decades, ushering in an era of unprecedented variety and low prices, at the expense of import-competing manufacturers. We offer a novel explanation for this puzzle. Building on firm-centric theories of trade liberalization, we argue that the retail sector’s transformation from one comprised of many small establishments to a sector dominated by behemoths created a powerful, concentrated interest that profited from cheaper imports, leading to the "incidental representation" of dispersed consumers in trade policy. Qualitative and archival data, Congressional voting on US trade policy, and cross-national data on trade flows are consistent with our argument. We illustrate the broader applicability of the concept of incidental representation in the domain of food assistance and social policy.

Authors

• Gautam Nair, Harvard University

• Richard Zeckhauser, Harvard University