The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017

Yasmine Bekkouche, Julia Cagé and Edgard Dewitte ()
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Yasmine Bekkouche: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles
Edgard Dewitte: ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: What is the impact of campaign spending on votes? Does it vary across election types, political parties or electoral settings? Estimating these effects requires comprehensive data on spending across candidates, parties and elections, as well as identification strategies that handle the endogenous and strategic nature of campaign spending in multiparty systems. This paper provides novel contributions in both of these areas. We build a new comprehensive dataset of all French legislative and UK general elections over the 1993–2017 period. We propose new empirical specifications, including a new instrument that relies on the fact that candidates are differentially affected by regulation on the source of funding on which they depend the most. We find that an increase in spending per voter consistently improves candidates' vote share, both at British and French elections, and that the effect is heterogeneous depending on candidates' party. In particular, we show that spending by radical and extreme parties has much lower returns than spending by mainstream parties, and that this can be partly explained by the social stigma attached to extreme voting. Our findings help reconcile the conflicting results of the existing literature, and improve our understanding of why campaigns matter.

Keywords: Elections; Campaign financing; Campaign expenditures; Campaign finance reform; Multiparty electoral data; Heterogeneous effects of campaign spending (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03389172v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published in Journal of Public Economics, 2022, 206, ⟨10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104559⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017 (2022)
Working Paper: The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017 (2022)
Working Paper: The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017 (2022)
Working Paper: The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017 (2022)
Working Paper: The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017 (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03389172

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104559

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