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Legislator Quality and Campaign Contributions Mebane, Walter R. Ratkovic, Marc T. Tofias, Michael W. Uploaded 07-18-2000 Keywords campaign contributions U.S. House of Representatives constrained nonlinear optimization two-limit tobit 1992 election telecommunications PACs political action committees Abstract We introduce a simple theoretical model of the relationship between the campaign contributions a legislator receives from a PAC and the amount of ``service'' the legislator provides to the PAC, a key assumption being that the marginal cost of service decreases as the quality of the legislator increases. Optimal solution of the constrained optimization problem that each PAC faces in allocating its campaign contributions among legislators implies a conditional two-limit tobit model for the relationship between contributions and aspects of the quality of each legislator. The constraints arise because PAC contributions must be positive but no greater than a legally limiting value and because each PAC's budget for contributions is finite. We extend the tobit model to support pooling data >from several similar PACs. We estimate the empirical model using data from the U.S. House of Representatives. The fact that optimal PAC behavior implies censoring suggests that it is usually inappropriate to aggregate contributions from different PACs; but pooling can work well.

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Learning in Campaigns: A Policy Moderating Model of Individual Contributions to House Candidates Wand, Jonathan Mebane, Walter R. Uploaded 04-18-1999 Keywords FEC campaign contributions campaign finance policy moderation GLM generalized linear model negative binomial time series bootstrap U.S. House of Representatives 1984 election Abstract We propose a policy moderating model of individual campaign contributions to House campaigns. Based on a model that implies moderating behavior by voters, we hypothesize that individuals use expectations about the Presidential election outcome when deciding whether to donate money to a House candidate. Using daily campaign contributions data drawn from the FEC Itemized Contributions files for 1984, we estimate a generalized linear model for count data with serially correlated errors. We expand on previous empirical applications of this type of model by comparing standard errors derived from a sandwich estimator to confidence intervals produced by a nonparametric bootstrap.

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Poisson-Normal Dynamic Generalized Linear Mixed Models of U.S. House Campaign Contributions Mebane, Walter R. Wand, Jonathan Uploaded 07-11-1999 Keywords GLMM MCEM count model heterogeneity FEC campaign contributions campaign finance U.S. House of Representatives 1984 election Abstract We develop generalized linear mixed models to analyze itemized contributions to U.S. House campaigns. Our basic model is a system of Poisson processes that have means that are log-linear functions of normally distributed random effects. Our model permits multiple random effects, including serially correlated effects. The mixed model specification involves an integration over the random effects that is analytically intractable. When there is only one, serially independent random effect, the model may be estimated using quadrature to evaluate the integral. With multiple random effects, quadrature is infeasible but the model may be estimated using the Monte Carlo EM (MCEM) algorithm proposed by McCulloch (1997). We illustrate these various estimation methods. The system we analyze includes contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates from different sources, including individuals and PACs. We estimate dynamic effects both within and across contributions series. The cross-series dynamics measure how contributions to one candidate react to contributions to the other. The cross-series dynamics also measure how contributions to a candidate from one source can mobilize contributions from other sources. We use a combination of observed variables and random effects to test the hypothesis of dynamic mobilization against several hypotheses that imply constant differences between candidates and between districts. One such hypothesis is that some candidates received persistently higher contributions from all sources because of PAC endorsements. Another is that some candidates are simply better at raising money than others. We also test how national expectations about presidential election outcomes affect contributions. We apply our model to itemized contributions data for open seat races in the 1984 election.