Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?"
In this paper, we argue that campaign contributions are not a form of policy-buying, but are rather a form of political participation and consumption. We summarize the data on campaign spending, and show through our descriptive statisti...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
2003
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/3511 |
| _version_ | 1826191717473189888 |
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| author | ANSOLABEHERE, STEPHEN DE FIGUEIREDO, JOHN M. SNYDER, JAMES M. |
| author_facet | ANSOLABEHERE, STEPHEN DE FIGUEIREDO, JOHN M. SNYDER, JAMES M. |
| author_sort | ANSOLABEHERE, STEPHEN |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In this paper, we argue that campaign contributions are not a form of policy-buying,
but are rather a form of political participation and consumption. We summarize the
data on campaign spending, and show through our descriptive statistics and our
econometric analysis that individuals, not special interests, are the main source of
campaign contributions. Moreover, we demonstrate that campaign giving is a normal
good, dependent upon income, and campaign contributions as a percent of GDP have
not risen appreciably in over 100 years - if anything, they have probably fallen. We
then show that only one in four studies from the previous literature support the popular
notion that contributions buy legislators' votes. Finally, we illustrate that when one
controls for unobserved constituent and legislator effects, there is little relationship
between money and legislator votes. Thus, the question is not why there is so little
money politics, but rather why organized interests give at all. We conclude by offering
potential answers to this question |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:00:16Z |
| format | Working Paper |
| id | mit-1721.1/3511 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:00:16Z |
| publishDate | 2003 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/35112019-04-10T20:10:06Z Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" ANSOLABEHERE, STEPHEN DE FIGUEIREDO, JOHN M. SNYDER, JAMES M. Campaign Finance Campaign Contributions Corporate Political Activity Political Economy In this paper, we argue that campaign contributions are not a form of policy-buying, but are rather a form of political participation and consumption. We summarize the data on campaign spending, and show through our descriptive statistics and our econometric analysis that individuals, not special interests, are the main source of campaign contributions. Moreover, we demonstrate that campaign giving is a normal good, dependent upon income, and campaign contributions as a percent of GDP have not risen appreciably in over 100 years - if anything, they have probably fallen. We then show that only one in four studies from the previous literature support the popular notion that contributions buy legislators' votes. Finally, we illustrate that when one controls for unobserved constituent and legislator effects, there is little relationship between money and legislator votes. Thus, the question is not why there is so little money politics, but rather why organized interests give at all. We conclude by offering potential answers to this question 2003-05-09T18:44:06Z 2003-05-09T18:44:06Z 2003-05-09T18:44:06Z Working Paper http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/3511 en_US MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper;4272-02 243214 bytes application/pdf application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Campaign Finance Campaign Contributions Corporate Political Activity Political Economy ANSOLABEHERE, STEPHEN DE FIGUEIREDO, JOHN M. SNYDER, JAMES M. Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" |
| title | Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" |
| title_full | Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" |
| title_fullStr | Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" |
| title_full_unstemmed | Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" |
| title_short | Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?" |
| title_sort | are campaign contributions investment in the political marketplace or individual consumption or why is there so little money in politics |
| topic | Campaign Finance Campaign Contributions Corporate Political Activity Political Economy |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/3511 |
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