The Incumbent Spending Puzzle

Objective. This article seeks to explain the puzzle of why incumbents spend so much on campaigns despite most research finding that their spending has almost no effect on voters.Methods.The article uses ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and fixed-effects regression to estimate the impa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science quarterly 2012-12, Vol.93 (4), p.932-949
Main Author: Magee, Christopher S. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advertising campaigns
Campaign expenditures
Elections
Electoral campaign financing
Electoral campaigning
Estimation
Expenditures
Government spending
Incumbents
Instrumental variables estimation
Interaction
Least squares
Least squares method
Money
Political Campaigns
Political candidates
Political finance
Political parties
Race
Rational Choice
Recent Research on Electoral Polities
Regression analysis
Spending
Variables
Voters
Voting
Voting Behavior
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Summary:Objective. This article seeks to explain the puzzle of why incumbents spend so much on campaigns despite most research finding that their spending has almost no effect on voters.Methods.The article uses ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and fixed-effects regression to estimate the impact of incumbent spending on election outcomes. The estimation includes an interaction term between incumbent and challenger spending to allow the effect of incumbent spending to depend on the level of challenger spending. Results. The estimation provides strong evidence that spending by the incumbent has a larger positive impact on votes received the more money the challenger spends. Conclusion. Campaign spending by incumbents is most valuable in the races where the incumbent faces a serious challenge.Raising large sums of money to be used in close races is thus a rational choice by incumbents.
ISSN:0038-4941
1540-6237
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2012.00845.x