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Silent Promotion of Agendas: Campaign Contributions and Ideological Polarization

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  • Hideo Konishi

    (Boston College)

  • Chen-Yu Pan

    (Wuhan University)

Abstract

Until recently, both Republican and Democratic administrations have been promoting free trade and market deregulation for decades without intensive policy debates. We set up a two-party electoral competition model in a two-dimensional policy space with campaign contributions by an interest group that promotes a certain agenda. Assuming that voters are impressionable to campaign spending for/against candidates, we analyze incentive compatible contracts between the interest group and the candidates on agenda policy positions and campaign contributions. The interest group asks the candidates to commit to its agenda in exchange for campaign contributions, letting them compete over the other (ideological) dimension only. It is shown that, as the agenda is pushed further by the interest group, ideological policy polarization and campaign contributions surge.

Suggested Citation

  • Hideo Konishi & Chen-Yu Pan, 2018. "Silent Promotion of Agendas: Campaign Contributions and Ideological Polarization," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 944, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 25 Jul 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:944
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    Cited by:

    1. Thorsten Drautzburg & Igor Livshits & Mark L. J. Wright, 2022. "Polarized Contributions but Convergent Agendas," Working Papers 22-29, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    2. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2023. "The Changing Polarization of Party Ideologies: The Role of Sorting," Working Papers 23-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    electoral competition; probabilistic voting; campaign contributions; interest groups; impressionable voters; polarization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

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