Campaign finance and national elections: an empirical investigation for Argentina, 2005-2013

SOFFIETTI, PABLO

Revista de Economía y Estadística

Facultad de Ciencias Económicas

Lugar: Córdoba; Año: 2017 vol. 55 p. 111 - 111

0034-8066

n this paper we examine the impact of campaign contributions onelectoral results in Argentine national elections for the period2005-2013. Using previously unavailablemicro-level data on private campaign contributions we test severalhypothesis concerning the relationship between contributions andelectoral results. Our findings suggest that while parties receiveboth public and private funds, only private contributions aresignificantly associated with electoral performance --i.e. the higherthe ratio of private to public contributions the higher the voteshare. Interestingly, while challengers see an increase in vote sharesas a result of an increase in private contributions, this is not thecase for incumbents. One possible explanation for this is thatincumbents have other sources of funding available to them --officialadvertising, informal campaign spending- which may be substitutes toformal private funding. This may have important implications in termsof policy design as limiting (or even