The paradox of less effective incumbent spending: Theory and tests

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 36, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 705-721

  Moon, Woojin ^a  

^a Ajou University   (South Korea)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33747873905     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123406000378     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Gary C. Jacobson, "The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections', American Political Science Review, 72 (1978), 469-91.
2. Alan Gerber, 'Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables', American Political Science Review, 92 (1998), 401-11.
3. Alan I. Abramowitz, 'Explaining Senate Election Outcomes', American Political Science Review, 82 (1988), 385-403;
4. Alan I. Abramowitz, 'Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections', Journal of Politics, 53 (1991), 34-56;
5. Stephen Ansolabehere and Alan Gerber, 'The Mismeasure of Campaign Spending: Evidence from the 1990 U.S. House Elections', Journal of Politics, 56 (1994), 1106-18;
6. Donald P. Green and Jonathan S. Krasno, 'Salvation for the Spendthrift Incumbent', American Journal of Political Science, 32 (1988), 844-907;
7. Donald P. Green and Jonathan S. Krasno, 'Rebuttal to Jacobson's "New Evidence for Old Argument" ', American Journal of Political Science 34 (1990), 363-72;
8. Gary C. Jacobson, 'The Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections: New Evidence for Old Arguments', American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 334-62;
9. Steven D. Levitt, 'Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House', Journal of Political Economy, 102 (1994), 777-98.
10. R. J. Johnston, C. J. Pattie and L. C. Johnston, 'The Impact of Constituency Spending on the Result of the 1987 British General Election', Electoral Studies, 8 (1989), 143-55;
11. C. J. Pattie, R. J. Johnston and E. A. Fieldhouse, 'Winning the Local Vote: The Effectiveness of Constituency Campaign Spending in Great Britain, 1983-1992', American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 963-83;
12. C. J. Pattie and R. J. Johnston, 'The Impact of Spending on Party Constituency Campaigns at Recent British General Elections', Party Politics, 1 (1995), 261-73;
13. C. J. Pattie and R. J. Johnston, 'The Value of Making an Extra Effort: Campaign Spending and Electoral Outcomes in Recent British General Elections - A Decomposition Approach', Environment and Planning A, 28 (1996), 2081-90;
14. R. J. Johnston and C. J. Pattie, 'Where's the Difference? Decomposing the Impact of Local Election Campaigns in Great Britain', Electoral Studies, 16 (1997), 165-74;
15. David Denver and Gordon Hands, 'Challengers, Incumbents and the Impact of Constituency Campaigning in Britain', Electoral Studies, 16 (1997), 175-93.
16. David Denver and Gordon Hands, 'Challengers, Incumbents and the Impact of Constituency Campaigning in Britain'; Johnston and Pattie, 'Where's the Difference?' p. 169.
17. The recent analysis of the National Assembly elections in South Korea yields the same result -that incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending. See Myungsoon Shin, Youngjae Jin, Donald A. Gross and Kihong Eom, 'Money Matters in Party-centered Politics: Campaign Spending in Korean Congressional Elections', Electoral Studies, 24 (2005), 85-101.
18. I thank Hugh Ward and anonymous Journal referees for pointing out two possible interpretations of the effects of campaign spending. As they commented, constituency campaign spending could be seen as a means of winning over support from people who might otherwise vote for another candidate, but constituency campaign spending in Britain is more a means of mobilizing supporters who might otherwise abstain.
19. Robert S. Erickson and Thomas R. Palfrey, 'Equilibria in Campaign Spending Games: Theory and Data', American Political Science Review, 94 (2000), 595-607.
20. Denver and Hands find a similar result from their analysis of British general elections; see Denver and Hands, 'Challengers, Incumbents and the Impact of Constituency Campaigning in Britain'.
21. Larry Makinson, Joshua Goldstein and Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets: The Encyclopedia of Congressional Money and Politics (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1994).
22. Jacobson, 'The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections'.
23. The evidence for this assumption could be found in the public opinion literature. According to Zaller, a Republican voter tends to 'reject criticism of President Bush's budget plan if she recognizes that the person making the criticism is a Democrat' (John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992), p. 42).
24. For a full model that solves the candidates' ideological positions at equilibrium, see Woojin Moon, 'Party Activists, Campaign Resources, and Candidate Position Taking in U.S. Senate Elections, 1974-2000: Theory, Tests, and Applications', British Journal of Political Science, 34 (2004), 611-33.
25. Per capita cost for mobilizing more supportive voters is greater than per capita cost for mobilizing less supportive absentees if less supportive voters outnumber more supportive voters.
26. When the distribution of voter preferences is bell-shaped (as in most empirical cases), the distribution of voters to the right of the cutpoint is a decreasing function of voter preferences.
27. Jacobson, 'The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections';
28. Jacobson, The Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections'.
29. Jacobson, 'The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections', p. 469.
30. Ansolabehere and Gerber, 'The Mismeasure of Campaign Spending: Evidence from the 1990 U.S. House Elections';
31. Green and Krasno, 'Salvation for the Spendthrift Incumbent';
32. Green and Krasno, 'Rebuttal to Jacobson's "New Evidence for Old Argument" ';
33. Levitt, 'Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House'.
34. Abramowitz, 'Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections'.
35. Abramowitz, 'Explaining Senate Election Outcomes' ;
36. Abramowitz, 'Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections'.
37. Abramowitz, 'Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections';
38. Erickson and Palfrey, 'Equilibria in Campaign Spending Games: Theory and Data'.
39. Green and Krasno, 'Salvation for the Spendthrift Incumbent'.
40. I use campaign spending per thousand people instead of per capita to restrict the natural logarithm of campaign spending to the range of positive values. This prevents estimated coefficients from being affected too much by the small number of large negative values when the logarithm is taken. Gerber adds the constant 0.01 to real spending per voter before taking the logarithm to avoid large negative values of the logarithms of campaign spending. The qualitative difference in estimated effects is negligible between the two methods.
41. Gerber, 'Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables';
42. Abramowitz, 'Explaining Senate Election Outcomes';
43. Abramowitz, 'Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections'.
44. Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal, Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
45. A simpler measure of candidate policy moderation is to compute a candidate's policy extremism by using the candidate's deviation from the average (or median) senator's policy position. However, this measure does not capture a candidate's extremism relative to the other candidates who belong to the candidate's party.
46. Gerber, 'Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables';
47. Abramowitz, 'Explaining Senate Election Outcomes'.
48. Abramowitz, 'Explaining Senate Election Outcomes'.
49. Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac of American Politics (Washington, D.C.: National Journal, 1972-2000).
50. Congressional Quarterly, The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1972-2000).
51. The conventional standard that distinguishes marginal seats from safe seats is 60 per cent, but incumbent electoral security since the 1970s has decreased, and Jacobson suggests that incumbents became less safe even with vote share of 65 per cent in the House elections. I use 65 per cent to distinguish marginal seats from safe seats based on Jacobson's argument (Gary C. Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional Election, 4th edn (New York: Longman, 1997)).
52. Since I used logged measures of incumbent and challenger campaign spending, the marginal effect of candidate spending is diminishing.
53. Hugh Ward, 'The Glass Bead Game: Testing Game-Theoretic Models of Politics', in Elinor Scarbrough and Eric Tanenbaum, eds, Research Strategies in the Social Sciences: A Guide to New Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 217-48.