Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17075
Authors: Nikolaj Broberg; Vincent Pons; Clemence Tricaud
Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of campaign finance rules on electoral outcomes. In French departmental and municipal elections, candidates competing in districts above 9,000 inhabitants face spending limits and are eligible for public reimbursement if they obtain more than five percent of the votes. Using an RDD around the population threshold, we find that these rules increase competitiveness and benefit the runner-up of the previous race as well as new candidates, in departmental elections, while leaving the polarization and representativeness of the results unaffected. Incumbents are less likely to get reelected because they are less likely to run and obtain a lower vote share, conditional on running. These results appear to be driven by the reimbursement of campaign expenditures, not spending limits. We do not find such effects in municipal elections, which we attribute to the use of a proportional list system instead of plurality voting.
Keywords: campaign finance rules; elections; candidate selection; electoral outcomes; france
JEL Codes: D72; K16; P16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | electoral outcomes (K16) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | competitiveness in departmental elections (D72) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | incumbents' reelection rate (D72) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | runner-up's likelihood of victory (D79) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | new candidates' chances of winning (D79) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | total number of candidates (D79) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | dynamics of who runs and wins (D72) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | polarization of election outcomes (D72) |
| Campaign finance rules (G38) | representativeness of election outcomes (D79) |