Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-c4bhq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-17T20:09:50.764Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Equilibria in Campaign Spending Games: Theory and Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2000

Robert S. Erikson  and
Thomas R. Palfrey
Robert S. Erikson
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Thomas R. Palfrey
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We present a formal game-theoretic model to explain the simultaneity problem that makes it difficult to obtain unbiased estimates of the effects of both incumbent and challenger spending in U.S. House elections. The model predicts a particular form of correlation between the expected closeness of the race and the level of spending by both candidates, which implies that the simultaneity problem should not be present in close races and should be progressively more severe in the range of safe races that are empirically observed. This is confirmed by comparing simple OLS regression of races that are expected to be close with races that are not, using House incumbent races spanning two decades.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 94 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 595 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Abramowitz, Alan I. 1991. “Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in the U.S. House Elections.” Journal of Politics 53 (February): 34–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron, David. 1989a. “Service-Induced Campaign Contributions and the Electoral Equilibrium.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 104 (February): 45–72.10.2307/2937834CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron, David. 1989b. “Service-Induced Campaign Contributions, Incumbent Shirking, and Reelection Opportunities.” In Models of Strategic Choice in Politics, ed. Ordeshook, Peter. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Pp. 93–120.Google Scholar
Cleveland, William S. 1979. “Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Smoothing Scatterplots.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 74 (December): 826–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixit, Avinash. 1987. “Strategic Behavior in Contests.” American Economic Review 77 (December): 891–8.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 1993. “The Spending Game: Money, Votes, and Incumbency in Congressional Elections.” Social Science Working Paper No. 806. California Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 1998. “Campaign Spending and Incumbency: An Alternative Simultaneous Equations Approach.” Journal of Politics 60 (May): 355–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Alan. 1998. “Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables.” American Political Science Review 92 (June): 401–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Donald P., and Krasno, Jonathan S.. 1988. “Salvation for the Spendthrift Incumbent: Re-estimating the Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 32 (November): 884–907.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 1978. “The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections.” American Political Science Review 72 (June): 469–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nalebuff, Barry, and Stiglitz, Joseph. 1983. “Prizes and Incentives: Toward a General Theory of Compensation and Competition.” Bell Journal of Economics 14 (Spring): 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, James. 1990. “Campaign Contributions as Investments: The U.S. House of Representatives, 1980–86.” Journal of Political Economy 98 (December): 1195–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.