Measuring Campaign Spending Effects in Post-Citizens United Congressional Elections

Brandon Barutt () and Norman Schofield ()
Additional contact information
Brandon Barutt: Washington University in St. Louis
Norman Schofield: Washington University in St. Louis

A chapter in The Political Economy of Social Choices, 2016, pp 205-232 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Using pooled OLS analysis, early literature found that incumbent and challenger campaign spending exhibited asymmetrical marginal productivities. That is, early scholars found that challenger campaign spending was more productive than incumbent campaign spending. More contemporary literature found this asymmetry was the result of endogeneity bias in the campaign spending covariates. Using 2014 U.S. House election data, we examine the nature of now-ubiqitous independent expenditures and whether these expenditures also exhibit an asymmetry in pooled OLS analysis. In addition to finding that independent expenditures can be differentiated from traditional campaign expenditures in their scope, dispersion, and magnitude, we find that the marginal impact of incumbent and challenger independent expenditures in pooled OLS analysis is symmetrical. We attribute this finding to the limited scope of independent expenditures. Moreover, using our estimated campaign spending effects, we find that political expenditures are rarely pivotal in determining election outcomes.

Keywords: Ordinary Little Square; Vote Share; Election Cycle; Endogeneity Bias; Competitive Election (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:stpocp:978-3-319-40118-8_9

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319401188

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-40118-8_9

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Studies in Political Economy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().