Does Political Ambiguity Pay? Corporate Campaign Contributions and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation

Randall S. Kroszner and Thomas Stratmann

No 7475, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Do politicians tend to follow a strategy of ambiguity in their policy positions or a strategy of reputational development to reduce uncertainty about where they stand? Ambiguity could allow a legislator to avoid alienating constituents and to play rival interests off against each other to maximize campaign contributions. Alternatively, reputational clarity could help to reduce uncertainty about a candidate and lead to high campaign contributions from favored interests. We outline a theory that considers conditions under which a politician would and would not prefer reputational development and policy-stance clarity in the context of repeat dealing with special interests. Our proxy for reputational development is the percent of repeat givers to a legislator. Using data on corporate political action committee contributions (PACs) to members of the U.S. House during the seven electoral cycles from 1983/84 to 1995/96, we find that legislators do not appear to follow a strategy of ambiguity and that high reputational development is rewarded with high PAC contributions.

JEL-codes: D72 D78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-pub
Note: LE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Does Political Ambiguity Pay? Corporate Campaign contributions and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation (1999)
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