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...

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...

We investigate whether US House representatives favour special interest groups over constituents in periods of low media attention to politics. Analysing 666 roll calls from 2005 to 2018, we show that representatives are more likely to vote against their constituency's preferred position the...

We study the consequences of campaign finance disclosure laws in a model of informative campaign finance. Campaign spending can affect electoral outcomes and also signal policy information to politicians. Under mandatory disclosure donors may engage in spending that runs counter to their...

This chapter addresses the roles that individual lawyers may play working in the field of Election Law, while serving as The Campaign Lawyer. There is no single definition or typology: they work on campaigns of all sizes and at local, state, and federal levels; they serve as general counsel for...

This chapter discusses the theoretical foundations of campaign finance regulation with a particular focus on the central concepts—liberty, equality, corruption, participation, and democracy—that have animated scholarly debates. The chapter begins by outlining key concepts from the legal...

We study the relationship between corporate political activity and technology adoption when incumbents may deter entry. We propose that a greater amount of campaign donations to politicians is associated with less likelihood of new technology adoption. We also suggest that the local political...

In democracies, political parties promise to expand social benefits to attract voters in the lead-up to elections. However, we know relatively little whether such campaign promises effectively sway benefiting voters. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we estimate the causal effects of an...

The 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis is a watershed phenomenon that reshaped global capitalism. Stemming from the argument that the Crisis was caused by deregulation, this article assesses to what extent the financial industry influenced the legislative process underlying these reforms. The...

Can campaign finance regulation curb the political influence of economic actors? In this article, we identify a new factor that may hinder its effectiveness-the social structure of organizations. We argue that such regulation creates cooperation dilemmas in firms' leadership and propose that a...

Routine immunization coverage estimated in surveys often substantially differs from figures reported in administrative records, presenting a dilemma for researchers and policy makers. Using high-frequency phone surveys and administrative records from government sources in 36 low- and...

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 paper explores the labor market returns to working on a victorious political campaign. Using unique administrative data from Brazil, we track the earnings and employment of campaign workers before and after close elections spanning nearly 20 years. We identify sizable returns to working for...

In their study, Grier et al. (2023) explore the causal relationship between campaign contributions and roll-call voting. Their analysis focuses on the influence of campaign contributions on two specific anti-sugar votes conducted in 2013 and 2018. The authors identify a substantial increase in...

Politicians’ influence depends on their relationships with other powerful politicians. In a network of elected representatives based on their committee assignments, I use network centrality as a measure of such influence. I use plausibly exogenous variation in funding to show that well-funded...

Labor unions' greatest potential for political influence likely arises from their direct connection to millions of individuals at the workplace. There, they may change the ideological positions of both unionizing workers and their non-unionizing management. In this paper, we analyze the...

It has become increasingly popular for scholars to investigate the technology of political, personal microtargeting (PMT). We review a sample of 62 research articles in the field of political PMT and argue that these studies can be grouped according to different orientations: an interpretative...

This paper presents a holistic view of the channels of political influence of large corporations in modern democracies, focusing not only on well-studied instruments, such as campaign contributions and lobbying, but also on more opaque ones, such as charitable giving, political connections, dark...

Among political practitioners, there is conventional wisdom about the outcomes of critical and salient legislative votes. 'This vote,' we hear, ' will either win by a little or lose by a lot.' Real-world examples suggest coalition leaders purchase 'hip-pocket' votes and "if you need me" pledges,...

This paper studies the effects of interactions between campaign spending and ideology on voter polarization. In a setting where microtargeting of advertisements is prevalent, we consider how differences in the resources available to the parties competing in an election, affect the campaign and...

Two candidates competing for election may raise some issues for debate during the electoral campaign, while avoiding others. We present a model in which the decision to introduce an issue, or to reply to the opponent's position on one that she raised, may result in further additions to the list...