Working Paper: NBER ID: w22739
Authors: Marco Battaglini; Eleonora Patacchini
Abstract: This paper studies how interest groups allocate campaign contributions when congressmen are connected by social ties. We establish conditions for the existence of a unique Nash equilibrium in pure strategies for the contribution game and characterize the associated allocation of the interest groups' moneys. While the allocations are generally complex functions of the environment (the voting function, the legislators' preferences and the social network topology), they are simple, monotonically increasing functions of the respective legislators' Bonacich centralities when the legislators are office motivated or the number of legislators is large. Using data on the 109th-113th Congresses and on congressmen's alumni connections, we estimate the model and find evidence supporting its predictions.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D72; D78
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Legislators' Bonacich centralities (D72) | PAC contributions (H29) |
| Number of legislators (D72) | Influence of social network topology (D85) |
| Bonacich centrality (Z13) | Resource allocation (D45) |
| Social ties (Z13) | Campaign contributions (D72) |