We study the strategic interaction between candidates to office and the print media, exploring the following tension: while the media is instrumental for candidates to communicate with voters, candidates and media outlets have conflicting preferences over the contents of media reporting. We...

The Poor People's Campaign (PPC) of 1968 was focused on highlighting, and ultimately reducing, poverty in the United States. As part of the campaign, protestors from across the country were transported to Washington, D.C. in 6 separate bus caravans, each of which made stops en route to rest,...

This study investigates the effect of candidates’ expenditure on elections’ results focusing on run-off elections’ data. Our analysis, based on all the available run-off municipal elections in Israel between 1993 and 2008, shows that candidates’ share of the vote is not substantially...

Political campaigns spend millions of dollars each voting cycle on persuading voters, and it is well established that these campaigns do affect voting decisions. What is less understood is what element of campaigning — the content of the message or the delivery method itself — sways voters,...

To the extent that election campaigns are simply advertising campaigns, they should not contribute directly to social welfare. Yet election campaigns are often very costly. Why do such costly campaigns arise as the norm? If they do not benefit society, should campaign expenditures be limited?...

If (often costly) election campaigns are simply advertising, they do not increase social welfare directly. Given this, should we limit campaign expenditures? We propose that costly campaigns can inform voters about the strength of candidates. This may increase welfare indirectly by helping...

This paper analyzes the effect of public financing on the competitiveness on elections. It shows that states with public financing have more competitive elections in state assembly races than states without. The paper also analyzes the fortunes of those candidates for the Maine House of...

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...

This paper examines the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which lifted bans on independent expenditures by corporations and unions. Using a difference-in-differences design, the study compares states with and without pre-existing bans, focusing on gubernatorial elections. The...

This work analyzes the impact of asymmetric financial constraints on the platforms of parties, using a formal model of elections. The main results show that when a party faces a tight financial constraint, the platform chosen in equilibrium is further away from its ideal point compared with the...