Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics

Gene M. Grossman; Elhanan Helpman

doi:10.2307/2297852

Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics

Gene M. Grossman, Elhanan Helpman

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

552 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	265-286
Number of pages	22
Journal	Review of Economic Studies
Volume	63
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.2307/2297852
State	Published - 1996

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Economics and Econometrics

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10.2307/2297852

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title = "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics",

abstract = "We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.",

author = "Grossman, {Gene M.} and Elhanan Helpman",

note = "Funding Information: Acknowledgements We thank Tim Besley, Avinash Dixit, Ian Jewitt, Torsten Persson, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, and the National Science Foundation and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation for financial support. Grossman also thanks the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Sumitomo Bank Fund the Daiwa Bank Fund and the Center of International Studies at 23. The approximation follows from the Liapunov central limit theorem, which requires also that the variance term becomes unbounded as n grows large. For a discussion of the applicability of this theorem in the context of a probabilistic voting model, see Lindbeck and Weibull (1987).",

year = "1996",

doi = "10.2307/2297852",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "63",

pages = "265--286",

journal = "Review of Economic Studies",

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AU - Grossman, Gene M.

AU - Helpman, Elhanan

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgements We thank Tim Besley, Avinash Dixit, Ian Jewitt, Torsten Persson, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, and the National Science Foundation and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation for financial support. Grossman also thanks the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Sumitomo Bank Fund the Daiwa Bank Fund and the Center of International Studies at 23. The approximation follows from the Liapunov central limit theorem, which requires also that the variance term becomes unbounded as n grows large. For a discussion of the applicability of this theorem in the context of a probabilistic voting model, see Lindbeck and Weibull (1987).

PY - 1996

Y1 - 1996

N2 - We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.

AB - We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.

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Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics

Abstract

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