Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149319 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6232
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This paper studies the impact of campaign spending on votes in French legislative elections. We exploit the political financing reforms which were adopted in France in the mid-1990s. Under the new laws, spending limits were reduced, legal persons were no longer allowed to finance candidates, and the maximal amount of personal expenditures reimbursed by the State was augmented. We have data on two consecutive elections (one before and one after the reforms) and focus on candidates who competed in both of them. We find that the difference in candidates’ campaign expenses across elections is strongly affected by the reforms. We then estimate a structural vote equation using panel data to control for unobserved characteristics of candidates. Spending has a statistically significant effect, but only for challengers. We cannot reject the hypothesis that challenger spending has the same impact across the various political parties in France.
Subjects: 
campaign spending
elections
political financing reforms
JEL: 
C23
D72
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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