IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v182y2020i1d10.1007_s11127-019-00670-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Silent promotion of agendas: campaign contributions and ideological polarization

Author

Listed:
  • Hideo Konishi

    (Boston College)

  • Chen-Yu Pan

    (Wuhan University)

Abstract

We set up a two-party electoral competition model in a two-dimensional policy space with campaign contributions by an interest group that wants to promote a certain agenda. Assuming that voters are influenced by campaign spending for/against candidates, we analyze incentive-compatible contracts between the interest group and the candidates on agenda policy positions and campaign contributions. The interest group asks the candidates to commit to a level of agenda promotion in exchange for campaign contributions, letting them compete over the other (ideological) dimension only. It is shown that as the agenda is pushed further by the interest group, ideological policy polarization and campaign contributions surge.

Suggested Citation

  • Hideo Konishi & Chen-Yu Pan, 2020. "Silent promotion of agendas: campaign contributions and ideological polarization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 93-117, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:182:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-019-00670-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-019-00670-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-019-00670-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-019-00670-y?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon Hanson & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3139-3183, October.
    2. Campante, Filipe R., 2011. "Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 646-656, August.
    3. Wittman, Donald, 1983. "Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternative Theories," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 142-157, March.
    4. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    5. Pastine, Ivan & Pastine, Tuvana, 2012. "Incumbency advantage and political campaign spending limits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 20-32.
    6. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2013. "The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2121-2168, October.
    7. Joshua L. Kalla & David E. Broockman, 2016. "Campaign Contributions Facilitate Access to Congressional Officials: A Randomized Field Experiment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(3), pages 545-558, July.
    8. Marc J. Melitz & Giancarlo I. P. Ottaviano, 2021. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 4, pages 87-108, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. 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.
    10. Prat, Andrea, 2002. "Campaign Spending with Office-Seeking Politicians, Rational Voters, and Multiple Lobbies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 162-189, March.
    11. Bafumi, Joseph & Herron, Michael C., 2010. "Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 519-542, August.
    12. Andrea Prat, 2002. "Campaign Advertising and Voter Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 999-1017.
    13. James Anderson & Maurizio Zanardi, 2009. "Political pressure deflection," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 129-150, October.
    14. Marcos Chamon & Ethan Kaplan, 2013. "The Iceberg Theory of Campaign Contributions: Political Threats and Interest Group Behavior," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, February.
    15. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias K., 2012. "Political competition between differentiated candidates," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 249-271.
    16. Marcus Berliant & Hideo Konishi, 2005. "Salience: Agenda choices by competing candidates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 129-149, July.
    17. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    18. Ivan Pastine & Tuvana Pastine, 2010. "Political campaign spending limits," Working Papers 201034, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    19. Thomas Stratmann, 2005. "Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 135-156, July.
    20. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521428316.
    21. Baron, David P., 1994. "Electoral Competition with Informed and Uninformed Voters," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 33-47, March.
    22. Bernhardt, Dan & Duggan, John & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "The Case for Responsible Parties," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(4), pages 570-587, November.
    23. Alberto Alesina & Alex Cukierman, 1990. "The Politics of Ambiguity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 829-850.
    24. Hansen, Wendy L. & Mitchell, Neil J., 2000. "Disaggregating and Explaining Corporate Political Activity: Domestic and Foreign Corporations in National Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(4), pages 891-903, December.
    25. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1996. "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(2), pages 265-286.
    26. Ralph Ossa, 2014. "Trade Wars and Trade Talks with Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 4104-4146, December.
    27. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521747387.
    28. Stephen Coate, 2004. "Political Competition with Campaign Contributions and Informative Advertising," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 772-804, September.
    29. Stefan Krasa & Mattias Polborn, 2014. "Social Ideology and Taxes in a Differentiated Candidates Framework," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 308-322, January.
    30. Douglas A. Irwin, 2015. "Free Trade under Fire Fourth edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 4, number 10486.
    31. Robert W. Staiger & Kyle Bagwell, 1999. "An Economic Theory of GATT," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 215-248, March.
    32. Guisinger, Alexandra, 2009. "Determining Trade Policy: Do Voters Hold Politicians Accountable?," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 533-557, July.
    33. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January.
    34. David Austen-Smith, 1987. "Interest groups, campaign contributions, and probabilistic voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 123-139, January.
    35. Glazer, Amihai, 1990. "The Strategy of Candidate Ambiguity," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 237-241, March.
    36. Ashworth, Scott & Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, 2009. "Elections with platform and valence competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 191-216, September.
    37. John E. Roemer, 1997. "Political-economic equilibrium when parties represent constituents: The unidimensional case," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 14(4), pages 479-502.
    38. Rosalia Greco, 2016. "Redistribution, Polarization, and Ideology," EcoMod2016 9699, EcoMod.
    39. Hideo Konishi & Chen-Yu Pan, 2017. "Campaign Contributions for Free Trade: Salient and Non-salient Agendas," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 926, Boston College Department of Economics.
    40. John Duggan & César Martinelli, 2017. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: Accountability, Commitment, and Responsiveness," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 916-984, September.
    41. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521417815.
    42. Campante, Filipe Robin, 2011. "Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions," Scholarly Articles 34310047, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    43. Davis, Otto A & DeGroot, Morris H & Hinich, Melvin J, 1972. "Social Preference Orderings and Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(1), pages 147-157, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2023. "The Changing Polarization of Party Ideologies: The Role of Sorting," Working Papers 23-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    2. Thorsten Drautzburg & Igor Livshits & Mark L. J. Wright, 2022. "Polarized Contributions but Convergent Agendas," Working Papers 22-29, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    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. Hideo Konishi & Chen-Yu Pan, 2017. "Campaign Contributions for Free Trade: Salient and Non-salient Agendas," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 926, Boston College Department of Economics.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    3. Thomas Bassetti & Filippo Pavesi, 2017. "Electoral Contributions And The Cost Of Unpopularity," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1771-1791, October.
    4. Bruno Carvalho, 2021. "Campaign Spending in Local Elections: the Effects of Public Funding," Working Papers ECARES 2021-30, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Julia Cage & Yasmine Bekkouche, 2018. "The Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," Sciences Po publications 12614, Sciences Po.
    6. 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).
    7. Stephen Coate, 2003. "Power-hungry Candidates, Policy Favors, and Pareto Improving Campaign Finance Policy," NBER Working Papers 9601, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. Julia Cage & Yasmine Bekkouche, 2018. "The Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393149, HAL.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7rcgbs4v788terphdvb6a5e8t8 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2018. "The Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," Working Papers Series 68, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    16. Cotton, Christopher, 2012. "Pay-to-play politics: Informational lobbying and contribution limits when money buys access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 369-386.
    17. Jo Thori Lind & Dominic Rohner, 2017. "Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income and Welfare Spending," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(336), pages 611-646, October.
    18. Pablo Amorós & M. Puy, 2013. "Issue convergence or issue divergence in a political campaign?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 355-371, June.
    19. Juan Carlos Berganza, 2000. "Politicians, voters and electoral processes: an overview," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(3), pages 501-543, September.
    20. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira & Allan Drazen, 2018. "A Theory of Small Campaign Contributions," NBER Working Papers 24413, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Campante, Filipe R., 2011. "Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 646-656, August.
    22. Wittman, Donald, 2007. "Candidate quality, pressure group endorsements and the nature of political advertising," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 360-378, June.
    23. Jinhui H. Bai & Roger Lagunoff, 2013. "Revealed Political Power," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1085-1115, November.
    24. 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).
    25. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electoral competition; Probabilistic voting; Campaign contributions; Interest groups; Impressionable voters; Polarization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    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:kap:pubcho:v:182:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-019-00670-y. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.