This paper introduces a structural model of campaign finance which permits estimation of the marginal costs of raising money as well as the marginal benefits of spending and saving money. The model is estimated for the 1986 through 1990 election cycles; the results demonstrate that the...

This paper introduces a structural model of campaign finance which permits estimation of the marginal costs of raising money as well as the marginal benefits of spending and saving money. The model is estimated for the 1986 through 1990 election cycles; the results demonstrate that the...

A fundamental property of any good theory is logical consistency. However, two common assumptions in the rational choice approach to political analysis (that induced preferences over policy are separable and that such preferences are independent of changes in exogenous factors) are not...

We demonstrate that female incumbents are of higher average candidate quality than male incumbents. This quality difference is the result of barriers to entry faced by potential female candidates, although the observed effects of this quality differential on vote share are partially masked by...

Much empirical work on Congressional elections implicitly assumes that candidates are vote-maximizers; this may be a fair assumption for challengers, but it is not a good description of incumbent behavior. I present a general intertemporal utility maximizing model of candidate behavior, which...