IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v95y1998i1p63-87.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Additional incumbent spending really can harm (at least some) incumbents: An analysis of vote share maximization

Author

Listed:
  • Dennis Coates

Abstract

The literature on the effects of campaign expenditures on electoral outcomes implicitly suggests that incumbent spending cannot have a negative marginal impact on the incumbent's vote share. Indeed, that literature has spent a great deal of effort finding positive and significant effects of incumbent spending. This paper shows that there are circumstances under which theory predicts zero and even negative impacts of incumbent spending. Estimating equations derived from the theory provide strong support for the base model, though only weak support for the extensions which predict nonpositive marginal products for incumbents. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998

Suggested Citation

  • Dennis Coates, 1998. "Additional incumbent spending really can harm (at least some) incumbents: An analysis of vote share maximization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 63-87, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:95:y:1998:i:1:p:63-87
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1004915813976
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1004915813976
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1004915813976?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Denzau, Arthur T. & Munger, Michael C., 1986. "Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 89-106, March.
    2. Jacobson, Gary C., 1978. "The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 469-491, June.
    3. Levitt, Steven D, 1994. "Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 777-798, August.
    4. William Welch, 1974. "The economics of campaign funds," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 83-97, December.
    5. Lott, John R, Jr, 1991. "Does Additional Campaign Spending Really Hurt Incumbents? The Theoretical Importance of Past Investments in Political Brand Name," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 87-92, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Filip Palda, 2002. "Campaign Finance: An Introduction to the Field," Public Economics 0209005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Paulo Jorge Reis Mourao, 2012. "The Weber-Fechner Law and Public Expenditures Impact to the Win-Margins at Parliamentary Elections," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(3), pages 291-308.
    3. Enrique García Viñuela & Joaquín Artés Caselles, 2008. "Reforming campaign finance in the nineties: a case study of Spain," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 177-190, June.
    4. Thomas Stratmann, 2003. "Tainted Money? Contribution Limits and the Effectiveness of Campaign Spending," CESifo Working Paper Series 1044, CESifo.
    5. Thomas Stratmann, 2009. "How prices matter in politics: the returns to campaign advertising," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 357-377, September.
    6. Thomas Stratmann, 2006. "Contribution limits and the effectiveness of campaign spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 461-474, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yogesh Uppal, 2010. "Estimating Incumbency Effects In U.S. State Legislatures: A Quasi‐Experimental Study," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 180-199, July.
    2. Bombardini, Matilde & Trebbi, Francesco, 2011. "Votes or money? Theory and evidence from the US Congress," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 587-611, August.
    3. Enrique García Viñuela & Joaquín Artés Caselles, 2008. "Reforming campaign finance in the nineties: a case study of Spain," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 177-190, June.
    4. Byungho Park & Moon Young Kang & Jiwon Lee, 2020. "Sustainable Political Social Media Marketing: Effects of Structural Features in Plain Text Messages," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-10, July.
    5. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    6. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers hal-03384143, HAL.
    7. Jeffrey Milyo, 1998. "The Electoral Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections: A Natural Experiment Approach," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9806, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    8. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Filip Palda & Kristian Palda, 1998. "The impact of campaign expenditures on political competition in the French legislative elections of 1993," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(1), pages 157-174, January.
    11. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2022. "The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 29-57, July.
    12. Thomas Stratmann, 2006. "Contribution limits and the effectiveness of campaign spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 461-474, December.
    13. Noel Johnson & William Ruger & Jason Sorens & Steven Yamarik, 2014. "Corruption, regulation, and growth: an empirical study of the United States," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 51-69, February.
    14. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel WILNER, 2016. "Campaign spending and legislative election outcomes: Exploiting the French political financing reforms of the mid-1990s," Working Papers 2016-28, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    15. Kenneth Benoit & Michael Marsh, 2008. "The Campaign Value of Incumbency: A New Solution to the Puzzle of Less Effective Incumbent Spending," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 874-890, October.
    16. Noel Johnson & Courtney LaFountain & Steven Yamarik, 2011. "Corruption is bad for growth (even in the United States)," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 377-393, June.
    17. Stuart Nagel, 1981. "Optimally allocating campaign expenditures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 159-164, January.
    18. Christopher Magee, 2000. "Why Do Political Action Committees Give Money to Candidates? Campaign Contributions, Policy Choices, and Election Outcomes," Macroeconomics 0004038, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    20. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.
    21. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Eric Dunaway & Felix Munoz-Garcia, 2020. "Campaign contributions and policy convergence: asymmetric agents and donations constraints," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 429-461, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:95:y:1998:i:1:p:63-87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.