The Political Economy of Resource Allocation Decisions      in Campaigns
{'Code': '04050200', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'SBE', 'LongName': 'Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'SES', 'LongName': 'Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Frank P. Scioli  Jr.', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
A fundamental concern to scholars who study American politics centers           on how resources spent in election campaigns influence electoral                outcomes.  This question is of interest for at least two reasons.               First, it logically precedes several important issues in democratic             theory:  Can parties and candidates with large amounts of money buy             their way into powerful political offices?  Does the need for money by          those who seek office allow individuals and interest groups who control         large sums of money, and who contribute to election campaigns, to wield         "too much" influence on policy outcomes?  Second, it is necessary to            understand the role of money and other resources in election campaigns          in order to predict the likely effects of various campaign finance              regulations, such as campaign spending limits, contribution limits, and         publicly subsidized elections.                                                  This project focuses on the resource allocation problems faced by               political parties that are involved in a number of simultaneous but             distinct electoral contests.  Specifically, how should a party allocate         its campaign resources across the various contests in order to maximize         its objectives?  Such problems arise naturally in legislative elections         with single-member districts and first-past-the-post electoral rules,           such as Canada, Great Britain, India, New Zealand and the U.S., and in          U.S. presidential elections under the electoral college with the "unit-         rule."  The Principal Investigator treats campaign spending as a form           of advertising, which increases the probability that a candidate wins           the office he or she is seeking.  Since only one of the candidates              competing for an office can win, spending by a candidates' opponents            also affects his or her probability of winning.  The researcher employs         a game-theoretic framework to capture this interaction.                         The project involves theoretical and empirical components.  In the              theoretical work, the researcher will analyze several different models          of campaign resource allocation.  The models vary in 1) the number of           competing parties, 2) the objective functions of the various parties,           3) certain details of the "electoral production function" (i.e., how            campaign resources are translated into votes), such as the differences          between incumbents and challengers, and 4) whether the world is treated         in a rather static fashion, with a single election (or, alternatively,          parties are extremely "myopic," concerned only with the current                 election), or in a more dynamic fashion, with a sequence of elections           in which the outcome of one election may affect the outcomes of future          elections.  In the empirical work, the researcher tests the various             models on data for the Canadian general elections of 1979, 1980, and            1984.  Then, using the best of these models, he estimates the effects           of campaign spending, incumbency, and so on, on the election outcomes,          using the appropriate formulas.                                                 Besides adding to the stock of knowledge about specific issues in               elections and campaign finance, this research is novel in that it uses          game-theory to guide very closely the specification of empirical tests.         In fact, there have been very few attempts to test game-theoretic               models empirically, and to treat carefully the econometric problems             involved in identifying and estimating these models.
{'FirstName': 'James', 'LastName': 'Snyder', 'PI_MID_INIT': 'M', 'PI_SUFX_NAME': None, 'PI_FULL_NAME': 'James M Snyder', 'EmailAddress': 'jsnyder@gov.harvard.edu', 'NSF_ID': '000114817', 'StartDate': '08/01/1988', 'EndDate': None, 'RoleCode': 'Principal Investigator'}
{'Name': 'University of Chicago', 'CityName': 'CHICAGO', 'ZipCode': '606375418', 'PhoneNumber': '7737028669', 'StreetAddress': '5801 S ELLIS AVE', 'StreetAddress2': None, 'CountryName': 'United States', 'StateName': 'Illinois', 'StateCode': 'IL', 'CONGRESSDISTRICT': '01', 'CONGRESS_DISTRICT_ORG': 'IL01', 'ORG_UEI_NUM': 'ZUE9HKT2CLC9', 'ORG_LGL_BUS_NAME': 'UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO', 'ORG_PRNT_UEI_NUM': 'ZUE9HKT2CLC9'}
{'Name': None, 'CityName': None, 'StateCode': None, 'ZipCode': None, 'StreetAddress': None, 'CountryCode': None, 'CountryName': None, 'StateName': None, 'CountryFlag': None, 'CONGRESSDISTRICT': None, 'CONGRESS_DISTRICT_PERF': '""'}
{'Code': '1371', 'Text': 'Political Science'}
{'url': 'https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/download?DownloadFileName=1988&All=true', 'xml': '8808601.xml'}