Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) raises firms' incentives to lobby policymakers to access policy information and influence policy outcomes. Surprisingly, we find that non-lobbying firms are less likely to initiate lobbying during periods of heightened EPU. The evidence is consistent with our time-varying barriers hypothesis that entry barriers to lobbying increase with EPU. We verify that the negative effect of EPU on lobbying initiation arises through the channels of lobbying entry expenses and returns to experience. Furthermore, lobbying entry expenses are not large, implying that the returns to experience channel is likely a more serious barrier preventing non-lobbying firms from initiating lobbying. We also find that facing high lobbying entry barriers, non-lobbying firms go for alternative political activities, such as hiring politically connected directors.

经济政策不确定性 (EPU) 提高了企业游说政策制定者获取政策信息和影响政策结果的动机。令人惊讶的是，我们发现非游说公司在 EPU 升高期间发起游说的可能性较小。证据与我们的时变壁垒假设一致，即游说的进入壁垒随着 EPU 的增加而增加。我们验证了 EPU 对游说发起的负面影响是通过游说入场费用和经验回报渠道产生的。此外，游说的入场费用并不大，这意味着体验渠道的回报可能是阻止非游说公司发起游说的更严重的障碍。我们还发现，面对高游说进入壁垒，非游说公司会选择其他政治活动，