Electoral Campaign Financing and Criminal Policy

Helping Friends or Influencing Foes: Electoral and Policy Effects of Campaign Finance Contributions

Campaign finance contributions may influence policy by affecting elections or by influencing the choices of politicians once in office. We study the trade-offs between these two paths to influence using a game in which contributions may affect electoral outcomes and signal policy-relevant information to politicians. In the model, an interest group and two politicians each possess private inform...

Electoral Strategy and Economic Policy

This paper develops an approach to political equilibrium in a twoparty setting. The approach characterizes political resource allocation as trading o¤ the utility of core party supporters and swing voters, i.e. those who are not attached to either party. The model has three stages. First parties determine their electoral strategies. Second, an election is held. Third, policy is chosen. To illus...

Policy Persuasion and Electoral Competition

The paper studies the impact of biased media news on policy outcomes in the classical Hotelling-Downs setup of winner-take-all elections with state-dependent payoffs. When voters and the two parties do not observe this state but an ideologically biased media does, it can indulge in two forms of cheap talk messaging: policy advice (that comes before parties commit to platforms) and party endorse...

Campaign Promises, Economic Performance, and Electoral Accountability in Latin America

The Last Rites of Public Campaign Financing?