A Simple Model of Political Contributions

Abstract

A microeconomic model of supply and demand for political contributions is developed. The supply is derived from the behavior of firms which want to maximize the expected gain from supporting political candidates in an election campaign. These firms allocate funds to opposing candidates, and equate the expected marginal return of a dollar contributed to each candidate. The maximizing conditions lead to a comparative statistics analysis. The demand for contributions is derived by positing that political candidates derive utility from their prospects of being elected and from some favored political stance. The latter may be traded for contributions, which enhance the candidate's election probability. The implications of this simple theory are tested using the 1972 congressional elections results. Simultaneity problems are solved by using two-stage least-squares techniques. The results of the empirical analysis conform reasonably well with the predictions of the theoretical model.