Campaign Finance and Political Representation

9631640斯奈德在之前的研究中，这些调查人员开始对众议院选举中竞选支出的生产率进行实证调查。这项工作的一些初步结果表明，美国众议院现任议员和挑战者面临的“投票生产函数”非常相似，在统计上并不明显。这一发现与传统观点形成鲜明对比，传统观点认为，现有支出的生产率远远低于挑战者。结果表明，竞选资金研究的核心问题不仅仅是资金如何转化为选票，而是为什么一些候选人能够比其他候选人筹集到更多的资金。在目前的调查中，研究人员沿着两条轨道进行。首先，他们证实了他们对现任竞争激烈的美国众议院选举中竞选支出的影响的初步调查。为了验证这些估计，他们将他们的分析扩展到美国参议院竞选和开放美国众议院席位竞选。他们还通过使用Lexis/Nexis改进了他们的测量技术，从而被允许制作关于谁竞选国会议员的最完整和最准确的数据集。其次，他们调查了不同类型的候选人、不同的选举环境(如国会选区、州和媒体市场)以及在政治生涯中，竞选支出的生产率是如何变化的。政治知识和民意研究经常强调，一场运动的有效性在很大程度上取决于背景。除了少数例外，关于竞选资金的研究忽略了这些背景因素，尽管有很多猜测。在具体的假设中，(1)如果候选人已经很有名气，(2)如果竞选活动在昂贵的媒体市场进行，(3)如果挑战者是第二次竞选，(4)如果挑战者是政治新手，(5)如果选民主要由候选人所在政党的选票组成，则支出的边际产出被认为较低。使用他们早期工作中提出的工具变量方法，他们测试了竞选支出的生产率是否以任何一种方式变化。虽然统计数据相对简单，但还进行了额外的数据收集。该项目产生了三个非常有用的新数据集，供其他学者使用：一个是关于国会候选人的个人和专业背景的；一个是关于商业和其他利益集团的地点、资源和活动的；还有一个是跟踪过去20年重要联邦立法的历史。***

9631640 Snyder In prior research these investigators began an empirical investigation of the productivity of campaign spending in House elections. Some early results from this work indicate that the "vote production functions" facing U.S. House incumbents and challengers are remarkably similar, and are not statistically distinct. This finding contrasts sharply with the conventional wisdom, which holds that incumbent spending is far less productive than that of challengers. The results suggest that the central issue in the study of campaign finance is not simply how money translates into votes but why some candidates are able to raise vastly more than others. In the current investigation the researchers proceed along two tracks. First, they validate their initial investigation of the effects of campaign expenditures in incumbent-contested U.S. House elections. To validate these estimates they extend their analysis to U.S. Senate races and to open seat U.S. House races. They also improve their measurement techniques through the use of LEXIS/NEXIS and are thus allowed to make the most complete and accurate data set of who runs for Congress. Second, they investigate how the productivity of campaign spending varies across different kinds of candidates, across electoral settings (such as congressional district, state, and media market), and over the course of political careers. Political lore and public opinion research frequently emphasizes that the effectiveness of a campaign depends very much on the context. With only a few exceptions, research on campaign finance has ignored these contextual factors, though there has bee much speculation. Among the specific hypotheses, the marginal product of spending is thought to be lower (1) if the candidate is already well-known, (2) if the campaign is conducted in an expensive media market, (3) if the challenger is running for the second time, (4) if the challenger is a political novice, and (5) if the electorate is composed largely of vote rs of the opposite party of the candidate. Using the instrumental variables approach presented in their earlier work, they test whether the productivity of campaign spending money varies in any of these ways. While the statistics are relatively straightforward, additional data collection is undertaken. This project produces three highly useful new data sets for use by other scholars: one on the personal and professional backgrounds of congressional candidates; one on the locations, resources, and activities of business and other interest groups; and, one tracking the histories of important federal legislation of the last two decades. ***