If You Use a Screen Reader
This content is available through Read Online (Free) program, which relies on page scans. Since scans are not currently available to screen readers, please contact JSTOR User Support for access. We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader.
Journal Article
Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House
Steven D. Levitt
Journal of Political Economy
Vol. 102, No. 4 (Aug., 1994), pp. 777-798
Published
by: The University of Chicago Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2138764
Page Count: 22
You can always find the topics here!
Topics: Political campaigns, Incumbents, Political candidates, Voting, Spending, Government spending, Congressional elections, Electoral districts, Political economy, Political parties
Were these topics helpful?
Select the topics that are inaccurate.
Since scans are not currently available to screen readers, please contact JSTOR User Support for access. We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader.
Abstract
Previous studies of congressional spending have typically found a large positive effect of challenger spending but little evidence for effects of incumbent spending. Those studies, however, do not adequately control for inherent differences in vote-getting ability across candidates. "High-quality" challengers are likely to receive a high fraction of the vote and have high campaign expenditures, even if campaign spending has no impact on election outcomes. To avoid that bias, this paper examines elections in which the same two candidates face one another on more than one occasion; differencing eliminates the influence of any fixed candidate or district attributes. Estimates of the effects of challenger spending are an order of magnitude below those of previous studies. Campaign spending has an extremely small impact on election outcomes, regardless of who does the spending. Campaign spending limits appear socially desirable, but public financing of campaigns does not.
Journal of Political Economy
© 1994 The University of Chicago Press