Should we really let the FDA be captured?

        Biogen, a biotech company worth over $30 billion, just got FDA approval for a $56,000 Alzheimer’s drug that is not proven to be effective. When I read this, I was inundated by the stench of regulatory capture emanating from this approval. Not only does this affect those who need the drug, the average Medicare Part B (medically-necessary services) insurance premiums will rise by over 14%. Biogen might be the most recent offender, but this analysis has led me down a rabbit hole tattooed by a theme of capitalism not caring about virtue.

        What I find most stunning is that the FDA seems to see no immorality in having massive companies push through layers of internal dissension to get approval for drugs that are not fully studied or proven to be clearly effective. That seems wrong to me. Capture seems like a mostly-fair side effect of a free market system, but that doesn’t mean it should rear its head in every bureaucracy without anyone batting an eye. Normally regulatory capture deserves careful thought, but not diligent combat. In the case of the FDA, combat seems most appropriate. There’s a difference between the shipping industry seeking fixed-prices and individual companies within the biotech industry seeking barrier control. The latter deals with potentially life-saving medications that have real physiological impacts (on top of financial impacts) on a large portion of our population.

Everybody Hates the IRS

Before my dad retired, he was a senior executive at the IRS, and he reported to the Commissioner of the IRS. Part of his role involved reviewing the budget for his department so that he could present it to the Commissioner. This would then be incorporated into the final budget proposal. 

My dad noted that the IRS budget proposal was typically more than they actually needed. The budget-maximizing bureaucrat model would suggest that the Commissioner is misleading Congress about the true needs of the IRS. Congress is forced to accept their proposals. Though this may reflect the behavior of other agencies, this is not the case for the IRS. Congress typically rejects significant components of the IRS's proposal.

For the past decade, members of Congress have voted to decrease the size of the IRS. My dad complained that this has truly affected its operational capacity. The IRS has substantially cut their staff, and, as of 2017, I believe my dad still used Microsoft Office 2007 on his work laptop. Simply put, voters hate the IRS, and it is politically popular to decrease their budget. The Commissioner has learned to overestimate the proposal because he knows that Congress will only approve a fraction of the budget. The Commissioner hopes that enough will be left in the appropriations bill to keep the IRS functional. Therefore, a more appropriate assessment is that legislators will do what is necessary to be reelected.

Looking Forward: The Effects of Climate Change on Bureau Efficiency

This week we discussed how it is possible make comparisons across government agencies in regards to the legislature's demand for bureau output. Some agencies have marginal political benefits that are relatively elastic, while others are relatively inelastic; the more inelastic these marginal political benefits are, the more important the agency is, and the less efficient they can be. This is due in part to the take-it-or-leave-it nature of bureau proposals and the fact that bureaus are essentially monopolistic suppliers of their output. The elasticity of demand for agency output can also change over time. As Alex Tabarrok's seminar showed, a prime example was the relatively inelastic demand for CDC output during the pandemic which allowed for increased inefficiency. 

With this in mind, let's turn our attention to climate change and its impact on bureaus such as the Environmental Protection Agency. As we have all likely seen, the effects of climate change have become more prominent in recent years and are predicted to worsen unless significant changes are made. Thus, the marginal political benefits of environmental regulation will likely become more inelastic in the coming years. However, with a more inelastic demand comes the increased capability to shirk responsibility. So, as we near the point of irreversible damage to our climate and are in desperate need of the EPA's output, will we see a decrease in agency efficiency? Only time will tell.

Red meat: to subsidize or not to subsidize?

 We have spent some time theorizing the “why” of regulation. As we saw in class, Stigler’s “Capture Theory” provides an intuitive explanation: claiming that regulation is “acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for it”. This somewhat scary idea, however, is walked back by Peltzman in his “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation”. What is clear from these works is that for-profit industries are incentivized to lobby their respective governments for industry control and/or economic support, but can only attain such if they are agreed to by vote-maximizing representatives.

Thus, a recently published article titled “Nearly all global farm subsidies harm people and planet – UN” especially peaked my interest as a public choice academic. This text lays out how the global climate change threat is being intensified by governments subsizdizing the production of red meat and dairy as well as the need to re-allocate resources towards more eco-friendly agriculture. According to a UN report discussed in the article, a stark 90% of the $540 billion in annual global support provided to farmers does more environmental harm than good. Further, an estimated $12 trillion in damage is done per year with the current level of regulation on a global basis, which greatly favors the environmentally-tolling production of meat and dairy (in terms of subsidies). 

An analysis of the effect this regulation has on total welfare across the impacted markets is necessary to determine the usefulness of these policies; we must consider whether the benefits these subsidized farmers are enjoying outweigh the costs. $12 trillion is no small number, so perhaps total welfare is being decreased as a result of regulation—as theorized by Peltzman. If this is the case, what will it take for these policies to change? And when? The answer lies in the attention the issue (or set of issues that this gets grouped in to) receives among voters and whether it will drive vote-maximizing representatives to alter their legislative course. 

Senior Bureaucrat Professor Coppock

I’m feeling oddly sentimental writing this final post, almost like I didn’t spend every week stress procrastinating them. Yes, it is possible to be super stressed about something yet still refuse to start it... I guess you know what they say about seeing the past in rose coloured glasses. 

Since Professor Coppock said he was a bureaucrat, the idea of the Public Choice Agency has stuck in my head. Let’s suspend reality. Do Profesor Coppock and the Public Choice blog post-producing agency hold up to the Traditional Model of Bureaucracy? Let’s assume blog posts are the agency’s output. Is the output hard to measure? How many are too many? How do we know the work is all of good quality. Even though Professor Coppock knows the measure of the output quality (four points hopefully, five if we are lucky), would others who are not a part of the agency know? How would one differentiate between a 3 and a 4 or even harder when it would be awarded a five? Is this class a monopoly supplier? Although I’m sure there’s another public choice class somewhere in the country making blog posts about issues, there is not another UVA public choice class writing them currently. Obviously, no other school compares to our economic prowess, so I would say we are a monopoly supplier on blog posts. Apart from Professor Coppock, there is no other alternative source on whether these posts are good or not *cue Professor Coppock screaming, “you can’t handle the truth.” Since these two assumptions regarding the monitoring problem hold up, I’m starting to believe that we just might be an agency. Let’s see, are we overproducing blog posts at a level that is not optimal in order to maximize? Of course not. Who wouldn’t want 150 so posts on public choice topics to read... Guess we aren’t an agency after all. 

The Principal-Agent Problem: I Am the Principal, the Agent, and the Problem

    My house of nine(!) people has begun to deal with the problems of shirking. All of us usually expect somebody else in the house to do the chores, which means none of the chores really get done. In contrast with the traditional (and highly time-consuming) methods of making a chore chart or having a house discussion about chore delegation, we simply get to the point where a house member can't bear the house being in shambles, so they text the group chat or members individually and delegate tasks that need to be done. 

    With this strategy, a task not being done can be blamed on an individual member, not the collective. This also leads to any one member of the house being a principal, agent, or both at any given time. The power structure is indiscernible in the house, with every member being under the will and in control of every other member. As a result of this, there is plenty of room for slack. No member owes anything to any other member so we can all misbehave, or shirk, without any real consequence. However, the social norm in place is to not redistribute tasks unless somebody offers to take the task from you because they desperately want it to be done. Whoever holds out longest, or cares the least, about any given task ends up doing the least amount of chores. 

    The industrial organization of our house does not have clear authority or any clear structure at all which leads to a lot of slack (me being a strong slacker myself). My public choice solution? Appoint a house representative unanimously to divvy up all the tasks however they wish with a month long term, with voting on the last day of every month for a new representative (or the same one if they do their job well). If someone doesn't do their task by the end of the month, they are disqualified from getting the position the next month. Sure, there might have to be stipulations to stop the representative from giving all the work to one person, among other issues, but I've run out of room to write about it so I'll just leave it to readers to work out the kinks.

The New Yorker and Selective Incentives

In class a few weeks ago, we discussed Olson’s theories about successful groups. We learned that it is easier for small groups to mobilize and overcome organizational problems, but there is a way for large groups to organize: selective incentives. Selective incentives are private goods or benefits given to people on the basis of whether they contribute to a collective good, thereby incentivizing people to join groups. They motivate members of latent groups to “act in a group oriented way”. 

 

This reminded me of the free tote bag that comes with a subscription to The New Yorker, which incentivizes many people to contribute to the collective good that is the magazine. Tote bags are really trendy right now, and some people even subscribe to the magazine for the bag alone. The bag can also have expressive value, and make people look educated or cultured. 

But I want it because it’s cute. Maybe I’ll subscribe.

Political Party Division on Committees

    In my social policy class, I am currently working on a project where you create a bill for a social issue that needs reform. Once you have selected a topic and the action needed, you must find how to best get your bill passed: finding a congressperson who will sponsor your bill. In class, we discussed the best strategy for getting the bill in the hands of the person who will best champion it. The most difficult part of this is deciding who on the committee would be best to go to. We asked ourselves questions such as "Is their state one that this issue is particularly problematic for?" and "What is their party?". When choosing a member, we were taught that party matters as you might need to choose a representative whose party doesn't usually vote for your issue to ensure that their base backs it. This is due to the immense amount of political division currently.     Looking at committees and voting through an economic lens produces a different picture regarding political parties. Weingast and Marshall state that committees align the two different parties because of their interest in the specific topic. However, we learned that party did not matter as representatives would shoot down helpful legislation to please their base. This begs the question, although they are both interested in the same topic, are they both on the committee to ensure that the other side does not negatively affect the issue due to having opposing views on it (in their eyes)? While theoretically, Weingast and Marshall are correct in assuming that since all members have a common interest, they must align on their views, in practice, the parties generally have very different views on the same issue. As we have previously have studied, political representatives are self-interested actors who will act to be re-elected. Although unlike my social policy professor suggests they might instead be acting for special interest groups rather than their constituents. Is the only answer that representatives will trade votes to get legislation they want to be passed in the future?

Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton as Preference Outliers

On November 5th, Senator Amy Klobuchar (Democrat - Minnesota) and Senator Tom Cotton (Republican - Arkansas), introduced bipartisan legislation that would "make it more difficult for dominant online platforms to make acquisitions that harm competition and eliminate consumer choice." Senator Klobuchar is the Chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, and Tom Cotton is also a member of the subcommittee (which is part of the Senate Judiciary Committee). The bill is called The Platform Competition and Opportunity Act and targets large tech companies such as Amazon, Alphabet, and Google amongst others. The language of the bill, however, is very specific in regards to which companies it covers. It would apply only to acquirers with market capitalizations or net annual sales in excess of $600 billion, as calculated when the bill becomes law (via a 180-day trading average). 

What's interesting, is that this specific language excludes companies like Walmart and Target, which are headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, and Bentonville, AR, respectively. They are two of the fastest-growing e-commerce platforms in 2021 (26.4% growth and 12.5% growth respectively) and are two of the largest employers in each state (Walmart is the sole largest employer in AR). In this way, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Cotton are prime examples of "preference outliers" with regards to e-commerce platform regulation, as they are well-poised to reap the benefits of legislation that gives companies in their state a comparative advantage nationwide. It is also an example of assumption 1, that congresspeople represent politically responsive interests of their constituents, in this case, the companies that are massive employers in each state and likely spend money lobbying each candidate.

 

“Can You Send the Notes?” and the Class Before Thanksgiving

 I’m not sure if I’m going to class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. For a variety of reasons, from traffic to family reasons to just wanting to spend a few days with Mom’s cooking, I’m still on the fence about my attendance. But will I get sent the notes for free? Well, if class notes are a public good, I will.

But are class notes a public good? Well, let’s run it through our two-pronged test of non-rival and non-excludable. I think most of us would agree that sharing class notes with a friend does not reduce our utility. Unless we are to get into a debate about how sharing notes with a friends could change a class curve at the end of the semester, I believe we can all get behind an unchanged utility function if our friend gets sent notes from class if they’re sick. Indeed, with this definition, some Samuelsonian economists might consider it a public good.

But what about excludability? In fact, it’s probably pretty easy to exclude me from notes from a day I missed. Even if I text a friend, they could ignore me or decline. They could charge me or even engage me in a bidding war for a picture of notes from Mr. Coppock’s lecture.

But what about socially? If a friend texted you, asking for notes from a day they were sick, would you really ask them their price? Would you ignore their text? I think not. Thus, I argue that class notes are socially non-excludable. Indeed, I can be quite dramatic. “my mom misses me dearly” “my dog wimpers each night I’m gone” “I haven’t seen my Gam Gam in years,” I could probably think of half a dozen excuses to miss class that would make you feel bad if you didn’t send me the notes. Thus, I would free ride off the attendance of others, and still gain some of the knowledge I would’ve gained from attending lecture. A classic example of a public good if you ask me.

So what’s the takeaway? Out of state kids – watch out. You have a text coming your way. I know you guys buy your flights for Tuesday evening just in case you have an exam. See you after Thanksgiving.

Environmental Voter Project and Rational Voting

The day before Election Day, I opened a letter in the mail from the Environmental Voter Project. I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this letter. The Environmental Voter Project (EVP) believes that it’s easier and cheaper to guess who's an environmentalist and then convince them to vote than it is to convince a voter to start caring about the environment. First, they showed me my public voting record (where they listed me as not having voted in VA in 2019, even though I wasn’t even registered in this state), and then let me know that voter turnout on my street was predicted to be “Above Average” and that I should join my neighbors in casting a ballot. 

Largely due to Public Choice, my very initial reaction was, “Wow, they are trying really hard to add to my D factor!” To most, that would be a very strange sentence to blurt out, but in the context of Johnson’s theory of rational absenteeism, “D” references the idea of civic duty -- that there are some reasons beyond just your benefit for getting your candidate elected that encourages you to vote. Along with social duty, this variable can also include social pressure, utility for the act, and expressive voting. Using my record and my neighbors indicates they’re trying to increase social pressure on me. At the same time though, maybe this strategy can backfire. If my neighborhood is more likely to turn out than average that could also reduce the probability that my vote is decisive and thus reduce my likelihood to vote. It’s unclear whether this intervention should work or not based on theories of rational abstentionism. In terms of the evidence for either direction, EVP claims in their report that 730,000 of the 7.4 million non-voting and seldom-voting environmentalists they’ve contacted since the fall of 2015 are now consistent super-voters, which seems to indicate that their intervention does play a role. But that means only about 10% of those they've tried to reach become voters, and most of those people were contacted in the last 3 years, so it’s really hard to tell how consistent these “super-voters” truly are. 

Though it might be unclear which side the empirical evidence lands on, at the end of the day (though I was already planning on it), I did vote. Did this intervention subconsciously influence my D variable enough to offset the lower probability of my vote being decisive? 

The Paradox of Voting

 The Paradox of Voting claims that for the rational, self-maximizing individual, the cost of voting will outweigh the benefit. A voter will decide to vote if and only if PB - C > 0, and P is the probability that the individual's vote "matters", i.e. if it is decisive. Because it is so unlikely that the vote will change the results of the election, predicted benefit is extremely small and (any) costs of voting are larger. While in some cases an individual's vote is decisive, this model ignores many other reasons that one might have for voting. A better model is PB + D - C. In this equation, D other reasons to vote such as civic duty, utility derived from the act of voting, social pressure, and expressive value. D does not need to be multiplied by P, because the value derived by the voter does not depend on which candidate wins. 

Principle/Agent Comparison @ Internships

After learning about how to safeguard against the principle/agent problem, I thought back to two of my internships in which I was acting as an agent.  At my first internship, I was working for my ex-girlfriend's Dad, and I slacked off frequently.  I would play games on my phone, read the WSJ, and go on social media.  Looking back, it is somewhat hard to believe I got away doing all this.  But now, I realize why I was able to -- there were no safeguards to the principle/agent problem.  My boss did not monitor me, the output was random/not well-defined or results based, there were no incentives in my contract (hourly pay), and being his daughter's boyfriend, I wasn't exactly replaceable.  Sadly, my slacking was reigned in this past summer.  I interned for a commercial bank where safeguards were erected.  Specifically, my output was quantifiable, I reported to a manager, and alternates could be found easily.  The only time I was able to slack was when I worked virtually, which I think has the potential to be a post-covid problem for many companies.

The Lengths to Prevent Employee Shirking

 Since the transition to work from home in March of 2020, there have been plenty of concerns surrounding employee shirking. Historically combative practices against shirking include monitoring, shorter contracts/frequent check-ins, having a well-defined output, and choice alternatives. Clearly, in-office work is a more practical setting to monitor employee behavior and ensure regular supervisor check-ins. Therefore, companies have attempted to find methods to recreate that since going fully online. The toy-brand company, Mattel, required job applicants to have a distraction-free environment (with no children, pets, or noise), a secluded office space dedicated to work, and an uncompensated supply of office supplies. The company also required at-home visits. These visits were described as unplanned visits to the employee’s home by a supervisor. These practices give less slack in an environment typically associated with slack, discouraging workers from misbehaving without consequence. While I understand that this is in attempt to prevent employees shirking, the recent success of productivity at home makes such drastic measures seem unnecessary. Working at home may lead to supervisors assuming laziness in their employees, but the trend shows quite the opposite. Sending in supervisors to check in on employees – inspecting their work environment and productivity – seems like an invasion of privacy that wasn’t present during in-office work. There are much better methods for management to ensure employee productivity and success without a breaching of trust like open and frequent communication through online check-ins and clear expectations about the job position. Employees should not be put in a position where their supervisors enter their homes to guarantee work completion.

On Being a Private, Ideological Voter

 

In our discussion of the Kalt & Zupan article, we talked about the role of ideology in voting. Ideology, defined as a system of beliefs that impacts the way that you view various issues/policies, can cause both voters and their representatives to vote against their pure economic interests and in favor of the so-called “public” interest. Voters may choose to oppose a strip mining bill, even though it would reduce energy costs, because of the damaging and unsightly effects it would have on the environment. They are empowered to vote against their economic interests because the costs of their decisions are widely dispersed, and there is a low probability that their vote will affect the outcome of the decision. 

Citizens “voting” in private markets, on the other hand, will inevitably be the deciding vote of any individual decision and will likely bear the entire cost of their choice. These circumstances make it more likely that consumers will - for example - buy  Nike shoes despite deploring their manufacturing practices. When we discussed this, I realized that I am an outlier among citizens “voting” in private markets; I weigh  ideology more heavily than the average consumer likely does. I came to this conclusion because of my unwillingness to use Amazon. 

For many people, including my parents, Amazon has replaced running errands. It saves time and personal transportation costs, while often providing cheaper prices than alternatives. In this way, it is in my and others’ economic interests to use Amazon for our purchases. However, I believe that Amazon can be harmful to the communities it enters. It can easily overpower and decimate small businesses; it promotes rampant consumerism; and it uses wasteful packaging and transportation processes. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, more than half of American voters believe Amazon’s size makes it so dangerous that it should be broken up.  However, because they bear the whole cost of pursuing more costly alternatives, many of these voters continue to use Amazon. If possible, I don’t - showing the utility I get from ideological “voting” is higher than the utility I would get from pursuing my economic interest in this case. 

Virginia’s Median Voter: A White Woman

Virginia’s gubernatorial election has just finished with Glenn Youngkin beating Terry McAuliffe by about 2.5 percentage points, a swing of over 10 points compared to the 2020 election.  One of the largest swings was with white women, (40% of the electorate) which swung in favor of Youngkin by 13 points.  White women have a history of being an unreliable group but education was the issue that drove them to Youngkin.  Education was the top issue for 24% of white women and 84% of white women thought parents should have a say in what their child school’s teaches, an opinion seemingly not held by McAuliffe.  That alongside Youngkin’s stance against the recent scandals in Loudon County effectively courted the group towards him during the last month in the campaign.

The Median Voter Model states that the median voter will determine which candidate will win the election by voting for the candidate who most closely matches their values.  Since Youngkin won the election, (assuming no abstentions) we can assume the median voter voted for Youngkin. Given the timing of the education scandals, the concurrent rise of support for Youngkin by white women for his stance on education, the large proportion of the electorate white women make up, and the unreliability of white women to vote for either party, it is safe to assume a white woman was the median voter this past election.

Pennsylvania state Supreme Court election

    During the new Pennsylvania state Supreme Court justice election, special interest groups have spent over 5 million dollars, potentially even 6, on campaign funding for the two candidates. One of the candidates, Brobson, has even been reprimanded by the bar association due to the nature of his attack ads on his opponent being so disparaging and false. This election is not unlike past campaigns, as previous campaigns have received up to 22 million dollars from special interest groups so that their candidate wins the justice position. This amount of spending on candidates is concerning. It takes away the court's integrity as the benefactors are not donating out of goodwill instead to obtain rulings that benefit them later. 

    The special interest groups in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice election are self-interested actors who strive to capture regulation to benefit themselves. Special interests groups gaining too much power worried Olson. He believed that these groups being overly powerful would lead to the demise of the nation. Like Olson, the author of this article also believes that once special interest groups gain control of political or judicial systems, they lose their integrity. Individuals would be able to pay for outcomes in the courts they want, rather than the judicial process working. These groups are more effective than other parties (voters/citizens) as they can overcome organizational costs to achieve their goals. Unfortunately for Olson and the author, these special interest groups will continue to be more effective as they can place more pressure relative to the other groups (general voters/citizens).

The Prisoners Dilemma of Masking Up in Mem Gym

This past Sunday, I decided to dust off the 'halloweekend' cobwebs by going to Memorial Gym for a workout, and I saw something that made the Public Choice alarm bells in my head go off. 

As we all know, UVA has made the decision to continue the policy of forcing masks to be worn inside university buildings for the rest of the semester. This affects me most in classroom and gym settings, and without going into my personal feelings, the low COVID case count in the student population combined with the high rate of vaccination is leading many students to feel like the policy is unnecessary. I go into this because during my time in Mem gym, I noticed that around a third of the students working out were deliberately wearing masks improperly, and some were not wearing them at all and were not being asked to wear them properly by the staff. 

I feel that this situation is a prisoner's dilemma, where the use of policing has been effective, but the policing has begun to cease in the latter part of the semester. I feel that this is a prisoner's dilemma because the dominant strategy of individual exercisers leads to a non-pareto-optimal outcome for everyone in the gym. I see not wearing a mask over one's mouth and nose is a dominant strategy for exercise, because the restriction of breath makes exercise more difficult and/or less enjoyable for most people, and not wearing a mask is seen as better than this. However, gym-goers pursuing this dominant strategy all at once creates a non-pareto-optimal situation for everyone, which is creating a greater risk of COVID spread. (The article makes the point that masks are necessary for exercise, as well as that they are inconvenient for vigorous exercise)

The implications of what I observed on Sunday are that policing is necessary to achieve the pareto-optimal result of minimizing COVID spread, and that we consented to this policing by coming to school this year. Due to fatigue, and less COVID on grounds, however, the policing by gym staff has ceased, and the supposed pareto-optimal condition the policy aims to achieve has been lost. I have continued to comply with mask wearing, but if I am to face no consequences by pursuing my dominant strategy, I will gladly work out without my mask, and bring everyone farther from pareto-optimality. 

Dairy Farmers as an Interest Group

The phrase "got milk?" is well-known around just about every age group in the United States. Commercials, advertisements, radio announcements, and more all promoted drinking milk for stronger bones for years, and many of us can remember them vividly from our childhood. Further, milk is commonly promoted in school lunchrooms, with the federal government making changes allowing for fattier milks in cafeterias as recently as the Trump Administration. These instances signal the success of the dairy industry's interest groups, but which take on the size of these groups prevails in this instance?

The main distinction is that Olson would argue that the dairy industry must be small, as it would more easily overcome its organizational problems and succeed. On the other hand, Becker would assert that the industry must be large, as this plays a much larger role in his formula for success than Olson's. It turns out that Olson is more correct in this case. In recent history the amount of dairy farms has been steadily decreasing, with the number of dairy operations falling over 55% from 2003 to present. There are currently less than 32,000 left. This means that even with the size of this interest group getting smaller and smaller, their success is still prevalent across the U.S., which Olson would say is because of their smaller organizational costs.

The U.S. Beef Industry as and Intermediate Group

In 2018, four companies slaughtered around 85% of grain-fed cattle in the U.S. The big four processers are Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS SA, and National Beefpacking Co. With these four firms controlling over 80% of beef slaughtering industry (it depends how you break down the meat industry, but almost any breakdown has these four firms as the dominant firms), they constitute an oligopy. Specifically, since there's no one large firm, they can be classified as an "intermediate" group. The lobbying patterns of the industry support this, with no one firm dominating lobbying, and Tyson Foods and JBS having spent the most and third-most on political lobbying in the general meatpacking industry in 2021. 

Lobbying across the past 20 years by the industry has also shaped a lot of the legislation with Tyson itself spending $25 million across that timeframe. The lobbying supported specific members of Congress who have voted against climate change legislation and cap-and-trade systems, both of which would force a reduction in meat production or capital investment in greener meat production, ultimately affecting bottom-line profits of the companies. Funnily enough, Clinton was even nicknamed "Chicken Man" becuase of Tyon's support for him during his presidential runs. These lobbing efforts by the oligopolistic industry work to capture favorable regulation for the meat industry. Both the oligopolistic industry structure and the lobbying patterns and efforts of the industry provide a strong example of Olson's "intermediate" groups and of the Stigler-Peltzman Model of Regulation.