The paper considers public funding of political parties when some voters are poorly informed about parties? candidates and campaigns are informative. For symmetric equilibria, it is shown that more public funding leads parties to chose more moderate candidates, and that an increase in the...

We present a model of elections in which interest group donations allow candidates to shift policy positions. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the platform choices of candidates would exist. Our game with financing of political campaigns exhibits two...

The paper considers public funding of political parties when some voters are poorly informed about parties' candidates and campaigns are informative. For symmetric equilibria, it is shown that more public funding leads parties to chose more moderate candidates, and that an increase in the...

This paper experimentally investigates the effect of limits on campaign spending and outcome in an electoral contest where two candidates, an incumbent and a challenger, compete for office in terms of the amount of campaign expenditure. The candidates are asymmetric only in that the incumbent...

This paper studies the effects on electoral competition of political parties relying on monetary donations and volunteer labour for their electioneering activities. It also examines whether a recorded decline in party activism increases special-interest influence on party policy platforms....

We explore how public opinion polls affect candidates' campaign spending in political competition. Generally, polls lead to (more) asymmetric behavior. Under a majority rule there always exists an equilibrium in which the initially more popular candidate invests more in the campaign and thereby...

Campaign expenditures are not effective in increasing candidates vote shares if voters do not respond to the advertisement when they believe that campaign expenditures are financed with tainted money. In this situation, limiting contributions may reduce the number of policy favors that...

We present a model of elections in which interest group donations allow candidates to shift policy positions. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the position choices of candidates would exist. With unrestricted financing of political campaigns two...