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Campaign Spending and Electoral Competition: Towards More Policy Relevant Research1

Abstract There is a long-standing scholarly literature on the electoral effects of campaign spending. Nevertheless, the academic research offers only limited guidance for policy makers interested in campaign finance reform. In part, this is because existing studies have focused narrowly on some vexing statistical issues. But it is also because political scientists have not devoted enough effort to conducting evaluation studies of how regulatory policies impact the intermediate goal of competition, let alone the ultimate policy goals of reduced corruption, increased citizen participation, and improved public policy. Consequently, there is a great need for updated and improved analyses of the treatment effect of campaign spending on political competition in a variety of electoral contexts, but an even greater need for the application of modern evaluation methods to the more basic question of whether campaign finance reforms “work” as advertised.