The Effects of Campaign Finance Laws on Turnout, 1950-2000

Jeffrey Milyo and David M. Primo

No 516, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri

Abstract: Scholars have proposed many routes by which campaign finance laws may impact turnout. For instance, laws restricting campaign spending may decrease mobilization, resulting in lower turnout. Alternatively, such laws might increase the competitiveness of elections, resulting in higher turnout. Existing studies tend to focus on only one causal pathway, ignoring the net effects of campaign finance reforms on voter turnout. We exploit the variation in state campaign finance laws from 1950 to 2000 in order to estimate the reduced-form relationships between reform and turnout. Using both aggregate and individual-level data, we find that campaign finance laws on net have little impact on turnout in gubernatorial elections. There are two exceptions to this finding: Limits on organizational contributions are shown in an individual level analysis to increase turnout prior to a sea change in campaign finance ushered in by the Buckley v. Valeo decision in 1976, while public financing laws are shown to have an equally large negative impact on turnout in the post-Buckley era. These results strengthens the existing literature, which finds similarly perverse effects of public financing on the quality of democracy, and demonstrates the advantages of reduced-form analysis for understanding the influence of laws on behavior.

Keywords: voting; campaign finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H79 K39 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-11-28, Revised 2006-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-reg
Note: Length: 27 pgs.
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:umc:wpaper:0516

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