Political parties play a crucial gatekeeping role in elections, including controlling electoral resources, candidate recruitment, and electoral list compositions. In making these strategic choices, parties aim to encourage candidates to invest in the campaign, while also trying to secure...

In May 2001, Senator James Jeffords left the Republican Party and tipped control of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats. This paper uses the surprise event to demonstrate what I term the "Jeffords effect": changes in the political landscape have large effects on the market value of firms. I use a...