Abstract
This essay develops a simple model to analyze the impact of campaign contributions on electoral-policy decisions of candidates for office. Interest groups here are firms that select contributions under the assumption that candidates' policies and opposing groups' donations remain unaltered. Candidates, however, recognize that their policy choices affect contributions. Campaign contributions are used by candidates to affect policy-oriented voters' perceptions of candidates' positions. In this framework the introduction of campaign contributions may affect candidates' electoral policies, and if they do then they benefit surely exactly one of the two interest groups.
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An earlier version of this essay (titled ‘Interest Groups, Campaign Contributions and Spatial Voting’) was written while I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Economy at GSIA, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. I am grateful to John Bone, Tom Palfrey, Tom Romer, two anonymous referees, and Peter Aranson for helping me clarify some of the issues here. They bear no responsibility for any remaining muddles, however.
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Austen-Smith, D. Interest groups, campaign contributions, and probabilistic voting. Public Choice 54, 123–139 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123002
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123002