IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v216y2022ics0165176522001756.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dark Money in Congressional House Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Cox, Christian

Abstract

The deregulation in campaign finance, stemming from the 2010 United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has led to nonprofit organizations with anonymous donors spending on advertisements targeting candidates. I study the effects of this “dark money” 501(c)(4) nonprofit spending on election outcomes in US Congressional House elections. Since 501(c)(4)s are not legally required to disclose spending to the Federal Election Commission, I use advertising data to measure their behavior. I estimate a model of the voter’s candidate choice, which is influenced by the spending of different groups. I find that 501(c)(4)s do not have significant effects on candidate vote share when accounting for the spending of candidates, parties, PACs, and Super PACs.

Suggested Citation

  • Cox, Christian, 2022. "Dark Money in Congressional House Elections," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:216:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522001756
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176522001756
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110590?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Depken, Craig A., 1998. "The effects of campaign contribution sources on the congressional elections of 1996," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 211-215, February.
    2. Stephen Ansolabehere & John M. de Figueiredo & James M. Snyder Jr, 2003. "Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 105-130, Winter.
    3. Brett R. Gordon & Wesley R. Hartmann, 2016. "Advertising competition in presidential elections," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-40, March.
    4. Levitt, Steven D, 1994. "Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 777-798, August.
    5. Chand, Daniel E., 2017. "“Dark Money†and “Dirty Politics†: Are anonymous ads more negative?â€," Business and Politics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 454-481, September.
    6. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521747387.
    7. Tilman Klumpp & Hugo M. Mialon & Michael A. Williams, 2016. "The Business of American Democracy: Citizens United, Independent Spending, and Elections," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 1-43.
    8. Thomas Stratmann, 2009. "How prices matter in politics: the returns to campaign advertising," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 357-377, September.
    9. Keith E. Schnakenberg & Ian R. Turner, 2021. "Helping Friends or Influencing Foes: Electoral and Policy Effects of Campaign Finance Contributions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 88-100, January.
    10. Sarah Moshary, 2020. "Price discrimination in political advertising: Evidence from the 2012 presidential election," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(3), pages 615-649, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira & Allan Drazen, 2018. "A Theory of Small Campaign Contributions," NBER Working Papers 24413, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bombardini, Matilde & Trebbi, Francesco, 2011. "Votes or money? Theory and evidence from the US Congress," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 587-611.
    3. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2016. "Local representation and strategic voting: Evidence from electoral boundary reforms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-45.
    4. Bryan Engelhardt & Justin Svec, 2012. "Political Contributions and Insurance," Working Papers 1204, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    5. Thomas Bassetti & Filippo Pavesi, 2012. "Deep Pockets, Extreme Preferences: Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Contributions," Working Papers 222, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2012.
    6. Noel Johnson & William Ruger & Jason Sorens & Steven Yamarik, 2014. "Corruption, regulation, and growth: an empirical study of the United States," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 51-69, February.
    7. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    8. Noel Johnson & Courtney LaFountain & Steven Yamarik, 2011. "Corruption is bad for growth (even in the United States)," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 377-393, June.
    9. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    10. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.
    11. Pinar Yildirim & Andrei Simonov & Maria Petrova & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2020. "Are Political and Charitable Giving Substitutes? Evidence from the United States," NBER Working Papers 26616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Cagé, Julia & Bekkouche, Yasmine, 2018. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," CEPR Discussion Papers 12614, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Eoin F. McGuirk & Nathaniel Hilger & Nicholas Miller, 2023. "No Kin in the Game: Moral Hazard and War in the US Congress," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(9), pages 2370-2401.
    14. Brendan Daley & Erik Snowberg, 2007. "A MultiDimensional Signaling Model of Campaign Finance," Discussion Papers 06-027, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    15. Gallego, Maria & Schofield, Norman, 2017. "Modeling the effect of campaign advertising on US presidential elections when differences across states matter," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 160-181.
    16. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2022. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03389172, HAL.
    17. Adam Bonica & Nolan McCarty & Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 2013. "Why Hasn't Democracy Slowed Rising Inequality?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 103-124, Summer.
    18. Alan Gerber & Daniel Kessler & Marc Meredith, 2008. "The Persuasive Effects of Direct Mail: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," NBER Working Papers 14206, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Hoyong Jung, 2022. "Examining the relationship between political spending and legislative activities," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 539-568, April.
    20. Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Tukiainen, Janne, 2019. "Are voters rational?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 230-242.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Elections; Advertising; Nonprofits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:216:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522001756. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.