Electoral Contests with Dynamic Campaign Contributions

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...

Dynamic Contests

Considering several main types of dynamic contests (the race, the tugof-war, elimination contests and iterated incumbency …ghts) we identify a common pattern: the discouragement e¤ect. This e¤ect explains why the sum of rent-seeking e¤orts often falls considerably short of the prize that is at stake. It may cause violent con‡ict in early rounds, but may also lead to long periods of peaceful int...

Iii Abstract Dynamic Contests

Considering several main types of dynamic contests (the race, the tug-of-war, elimination contests and iterated incumbency fights) we identify a common pattern: the discouragement effect. This effect explains why the sum of rent-seeking efforts often falls considerably short of the prize that is at stake. It may cause violent conflict in early rounds, but may also lead to long periods of peacef...

Dynamic Contests with Bankruptcy: the Despair Effect

In this paper we analyze a two period contest in which agents may become bankrupt at the end of the …rst period. A bankrupt agent is excluded from the contest in the second period of the game. We investigate the existence of a subgame perfect equilibrium in pure strategies. We distinguish between a borrowing equilibrum where at least an agent might be bankrupt and a non borrowing equilibrium wh...

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