In this paper, we argue that campaign contributions are not a form of policy-buying, but are rather a form of political participation and consumption. We summarize the data on campaign spending, and show through our descriptive statistics and our econometric analysis that individuals, not special interests, are the main source of campaign contributions. Moreover, we demonstrate that campaign giving is a normal good, dependent upon income, and campaign contributions as a percent of GDP have not risen appreciably in over 100 years: if anything, they have probably fallen. We then show that only one in four studies from the previous literature support the popular notion that contributions buy legislators' votes. Finally, we illustrate that when one controls for unobserved constituent and legislator effects, there is little relationship between money and legislator votes. Thus, the question is not why there is so little money politics, but rather why organized interests give at all. We conclude by offering potential answers to this question.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/nber_w9409.pdf?abstractid=366446&mirid=1&type=2

Why is There so Little Money in Politics

Over the last two decades institutional critics have increasingly charged that moneyed interests dominate the legislative process in Congress. Systematic research on campaign contributions and members' floor voting, however, provides little supporting evidence. We develop a view of the member-donor relationship that questions the theoretical underpinnings of the vote-buying hypothesis itself and suggests two alternative claims: (1) the effects of group expenditures are more likely to appear in committee than on the floor; and (2) the behavior most likely to be affected is members' legislative involvement, not their votes. In order to test this account, we specify a model of committee participation and estimate it using data from three House committees. In contrast to the substantial literature on contributions and roll calls, our analysis provides solid support for the importance of moneyed interests in the legislative process. We also find evidence that members are more responsive to organized business interests within their districts than to unorganized voters even when voters have strong preferences and the issue at stake is salient. Such findings suggest several important implications for our understanding of political money, interest groups, and the representativeness of legislative deliberations.

Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees

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Why is There So Little Money in U.S. Politics

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor model combines insights on the allocation of effort into entrepreneurship at the national (adult working-age population) level with literature in the Austrian tradition. The model suggests that the relationship between national-level new business activity and the institutional environment, or Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions, is mediated by opportunity perception and the perception of start-up skills in the population. We provide a theory-grounded examination of this model and test the effect of one EFC, education and training for entrepreneurship, on the allocation of effort into new business activity. We find that in high-income countries, opportunity perception mediates fully the relationship between the level of post-secondary entrepreneurship education and training in a country and its rate of new business activity, including high-growth expectation new business activity. The mediating effect of skills perception is weaker. This result accords with the Kirznerian concept of alertness to opportunity stimulating action.

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A theoretical grounding and test of the GEM model

C ampaign contributions made by corporate political action committees (PACs) are increasingly important-and controversial-in U.S. elections. "Influence purchasing" is often alleged by pundits, and campaign finance reform is continually debated in Congress. In the academy, social scientists have analyzed the allocation of interest group monies and have looked for possible impacts on legislation. Few, however, have tried to explain the total contributions of economic interest groups. We shall analyze variations in contributions across industries and over time with an empirical model based on organizationally constrained profit-maximizing behavior. We assume that corporate PAC contributions in an industry are raised to enhance industry profits subject to the constraints of organization costs and freeriding incentives. Our empirical work covers 124 industries over five election cycles from 1978 through 1986. Both the costs and benefits of political activity vary across industries. We argue that the benefits of political action are determined by direct contact with the government as a regulator or purchaser of industry output, by government's ability to ameliorate adverse market conditions, and by the industry's ability to solve collective action problems without government assistance. The costs of industry political action arise mainly from collective action problems, because effective political activity often requires concerted action by the constituent firms in each industry. We also make a methodological contribution. Previous studies use statistical techniques that suffer from sample selectivity bias or else force the probability of acting politically to be explained by the same set of coefficients as is the amount of action taken. We explain and employ a technique that accounts for both problems. The results are consistent with the theses that industries follow investment-oriented goals in deciding the amount of political action to undertake, and that collective action problems are important constraints on industry political activity. We can explain between 60% and 80% of the variation in contributions in our sample. First, we review existing work on corporate political activity, particularly papers examining patterns of aggregate PAC spending by industry. Then we present an organization-cost-constrained industryprofit-maximizing model, based on a comparison between an idealized zero-organization-cost industry and the more realistic case where organizing collective action is difficult. The independent variables used in the analysis are also discussed and defined. Next, we discuss the dependent variable and total industry contributions and explain our statistical method. Then the results are presented, followed by a discussion of industry structure and political activity. To make clear how our results can explain different contribution patterns, we give examples using five actual industries.

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The Determinants of Industry Political Activity, 1978–1986.

Pork barrel projects would surely rank near the top of most observers' lists of Congress's most widely despised products. Yet, political leaders in Congress and the President often trade pork for votes to pass legislation that serves broad national purposes, giving members of Congress pork barrel projects in return for their votes on general interest legislation. It is a practice that succeeds at a cost, but it is a cost that many political leaders are willing to pay in order to enact the broader public policies that they favor. There is an irony in this: pork barrel benefits, the most reviled of Congress's legislative products, are used by policy coalition leaders to produce the type of policy that is most admired - general interest legislation. This book makes the case that buying votes with pork is one way in which Congress solves its well-known collective action problem.

/pdf/greasing-the-wheels-using-pork-barrel-projects-to-build-2wevuuicmd.pdf

Greasing the Wheels: Using Pork Barrel Projects to Build Majority Coalitions in Congress

What is it? The term "pork barrel" originated from the era of slavery before the US civil war, when "when slave owners occasionally would present a barrel of salt pork as a gift to their slaves" (Drudge, 2008).Since then, it has been used often to describe US politics when congressmen set asde funds for their own district to garner votes. In a wider sense, pork barrel politics refer to governmental spending on policies that are popular with and benefit a certain group of people, which then helps to win favour (in the form of votes) from the affected group(s) of people. Within Japan, the deeply rooted iron triangle system supports the formation of pork barrel politics. This triangle refers to politicians, bureaucrats, and interest groups (like businesses) which work closely together for mutual interests through a “back-scratching alliance” and the practice of amakudari (Sugimoto, 2010). Pempel (2010) argues that pork barrel politics have led to huge regions of LDP agricultural blocs, comprising farmers from rural areas who vote in return for the protection of domestic agriculture. Another form of pork barrel politics that he identifies are large public spending on construction projects like highways and bridges. He thus argues that this has led to an underlying tension between “pork and productivity”, deeming pork barrel policies to be largely inefficient and a wastage of resources. Additionally, Japanese politicians’ heavy reliance on pork barrel politics have led to a problem of dependence. They face difficulty when trying to change policies because pushing for competitive neoliberal market reforms often go against the ideals of these sheltered groups like the farmers who wield much political power.

Pork Barrel Politics

Scholars have found oil PACs to be the most ideological of all corporate PACs. In the 1980 elections, oil PACs contributed to Republican challengers to an extent more typical of nonconnected PACs than the usually more pragmatic corporate PACs. This study examines oil PAC contributions in the 1980 House elections. It assumes that corporate self-interest underlies even an ideological strategy; thus, actual allocation decisions are likely to be driven by both pragmatic and ideological considerations. The statistical analysis shows that to be true for oil company PACs. Although they show some tendency to be more pragmatic in contributing to incumbents and more ideological in giving to challengers, collinearity problems make conclusions on this point problematic. However, in giving to incumbents, oil PACs helped conservatives regardless of party and friends regardless of ideology; when they contributed to challengers, on the other hand, they concentrated on Republicans and opponents of influential liberal incu...

Oil PACs and Aggressive Contribution Strategies

This research examines the relationship between interest group activities and the public policy decisions of congressional committees. Unlike the conventional approach, which estimates the relationship between interest group resources and legislators' roll-call votes, the technique used here treats as the dependent variable interest group success at getting what they want from committees on their individual policy preferences. This approach has the unusual advantage of allowing systematic investigation of decisions made behind the scenes which never come to a formal vote. It also facilitates estimation of the relationship between policy outcomes and lobbying directed at committee staff as well as members, and allows evaluation of the effect of contextual variables, especially conflict. A model of interest group success on dozens of provisions of two complex bills was estimated. Although conflict among groups dampened interest group success, lobbying committee staff was associated with group success. However, even under the decision-making condition expected to be most favorable to interest groups, virtually complete public invisibility, interest groups did not always get their way with congressional committees. The central question in the literature on Congress and interest groups con

Before the Roll Call: Interest Group Lobbying and Public Policy Outcomes in House

This research examines the relationship between interest group activities and the public policy decisions of congressional committees. Unlike the conventional approach, which estimates the relation...

Diana Evans

Papers

Greasing the Wheels: Using Pork Barrel Projects to Build Majority Coalitions in Congress

Pork Barrel Politics

Oil PACs and Aggressive Contribution Strategies

Before the Roll Call: Interest Group Lobbying and Public Policy Outcomes in House

Before the Roll Call: Interest Group Lobbying and Public Policy Outcomes in House Committees