Electoral rivalry and financial campaign contributions: The case of US Congressional elections

Reza Oladi and John Gilbert

International Review of Economics & Finance, 2022, vol. 80, issue C, 822-834

Abstract: Motivated by the observation that ideological political action committees (PACs) frequently contribute to multiple rival candidates within a given electoral race, we develop a model in which candidates for an elected office position themselves along a political spectrum in response to financial contributions, and strategically consider the positions adopted by their electoral rivals. This implies that PACs can affect a given candidate’s position both directly and indirectly. We describe the characteristics of the equilibrium of this game. In particular, we derive conditions under which the candidate’s positions are strategic complements/substitutes. We test the predictions of the model using data on the voting behavior of challengers who defeat incumbent legislators in the US House of Representatives, and find strong empirical evidence in support of strategic complementarity.

Keywords: Campaign contributions; Candidate positioning; Voting behavior; Policy for sale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056022001009
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reveco:v:80:y:2022:i:c:p:822-834

DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2022.02.080

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Economics & Finance is currently edited by H. Beladi and C. Chen

More articles in International Review of Economics & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().