Campaign spending and legislative election outcomes: Exploiting the French political financing reforms of the mid-1990s

Abel François, Michael Visser and Lionel Wilner

No 2016-28, Working Papers from Center for Research in Economics and Statistics

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of campaign spending on votes in French legislative elections. We exploit the political nancing reforms which were adopted in France in the mid-1990s. Under the new laws, spending limits were reduced, legal persons were no longer allowed to finance candidates, and the maximal amount of personal expenditures reimbursed by the State was augmented. We have data on two consecutive elections (one before and one after the reforms) and focus on candidates who competed in both of them. We find that the difference in candidates' campaign expenses across elections is strongly affected by the reforms. We then estimate a structural vote equation using panel data to control for unobserved characteristics of candidates. Spending has a statistically signi cant effect, but only for challengers.

Keywords: Campaign Spending; Elections; Political Financing Reforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36
Date: 2016-08
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Related works:
Working Paper: Using Political Financing Reforms to Measure Campaign Spending Effects on Electoral Outcomes (2016)
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