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The politician and the vote factory: Candidates’ resource management skills and electoral returns

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  • Farvaque, Etienne
  • Foucault, Martial
  • Vigeant, Stéphane

Abstract

This paper disentangles resource management skills of candidates from the electoral circumstances that help them getting (re-)elected. It is first made use of the DEA method to measure candidates’ resource management abilities. Second, determinants of these scores are estimated. The paper uses a database detailing the different sources of campaign funding for French members of Parliament to analyze their relative performance. Results show a large variance in campaign resource management ability, particularly between political parties, and incumbents and newcomers. They also reveal an important role of constituencies’ characteristics and of politicians' experience in explaining differences between politicians' efforts. Thus, public policies could promote virtuous regulations to reduce disparities among candidates with different financial backgrounds and access to resources, to foster a fairer democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Farvaque, Etienne & Foucault, Martial & Vigeant, Stéphane, 2020. "The politician and the vote factory: Candidates’ resource management skills and electoral returns," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 38-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:42:y:2020:i:1:p:38-55
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2019.09.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2022. "The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 29-57, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Campaign funding; DEA; Elections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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