[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v115y2021i2p395-411_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Do Campaign Spending Limits Affect Elections? Evidence from the United Kingdom 1885–2019

Author

Listed:
  • FOUIRNAIES, ALEXANDER
Abstract
In more than half of the democratic countries in the world, candidates face legal constraints on how much money they can spend on their electoral campaigns, yet we know little about the consequences of these restrictions. I study how spending limits affect UK House of Commons elections. I contribute new data on the more than 70,000 candidates who ran for a parliamentary seat from 1885 to 2019, and I document how much money each candidate spent, how they allocated their resources across different spending categories, and the spending limit they faced. To identify the effect on elections, I exploit variation in spending caps induced by reforms of the spending-limit formula that affected some but not all constituencies. The results indicate that when the level of permitted spending is increased, the cost of electoral campaigns increases, which is primarily driven by expenses related to advertisement and mainly to the disadvantage of Labour candidates; the pool of candidates shrinks and elections become less competitive; and the financial and electoral advantages enjoyed by incumbents are amplified.

Suggested Citation

  • Fouirnaies, Alexander, 2021. "How Do Campaign Spending Limits Affect Elections? Evidence from the United Kingdom 1885–2019," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 115(2), pages 395-411, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:115:y:2021:i:2:p:395-411_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055420001008/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Balart, Pau & Casas, Agustin & Troumpounis, Orestis, 2022. "Technological change, campaign spending and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    4. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    5. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2022. "When Does Money Matter for Elections?," SciencePo Working papers hal-03619549, HAL.
    6. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2022. "When Does Money Matter for Elections?," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03619549, HAL.
    7. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2022. "When Does Money Matter for Elections?," Post-Print hal-03619549, HAL.
    8. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers hal-03384143, HAL.
    9. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    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:cup:apsrev:v:115:y:2021:i:2:p:395-411_5. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    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.