The Political Selection Effects of Campaign Finance Rules

• In Event: How the Rich Control Government

Abstract

In many countries, the political elite appears to be dominated by wealthy individuals. One commonly cited reason is the
nature of the campaign finance system. Weak limits on campaign spending and rules protecting the role of outside funding are seen as especially advantageous for well-off candidates, given their greater ability to self-finance and stronger connections to deep-pocketed donors. While intuitive, this conjecture has scarcely been studied systematically in a comparative context due to the lack of comprehensive data on politicians' wealth. Drawing on newly-collected data from asset disclosures in over 45 countries around the world, we examine cross-nationally the extent to which the variation in elected officials' wealth is associated with differences in campaign finance rules. We further explore potential mechanisms by which campaign financing affects the composition of the political elite by focusing on the specific case of Brazil. We exploit the recent introduction of bans on corporate donations and lower caps on campaign spending to examine how these reforms affected the relative electoral success and patterns of campaign financing by candidates of differing wealth in local and national elections.

Authors

• Marko Klasnja, Georgetown University

• Lucia Motolinia, Washington University in St Louis

• Simon Weschle, Syracuse University