Congruence Among the Voters and Contributions to Political Campaigns
Economics
Speaker: | Elena Panova, CORE and UQAM |
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Date: | Friday 12 May 2006 |
Time: | 16:15 |
Location: | Lecture Room D, Streatham Court |
Further details
This paper builds a theory of political campaign contributions. Interest groups can engage in non-directly informative political advertising in order to signal their private information on the valence of candidates. The paper's key insights are: (a) campaign contributions can be rationalized by interest groups signalling benefits; (b) electoral campaigns are cheaper, the more congruent the voters; (c) incumbents receive more contributions because the interest groups that seek re-election are better informed about their valence than other voters; (d) campaign contributions increase the voter welfare.