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I study how the possibility of voters contributing to candidates in response to the candidates' policy proposals affects the equilibrium policy in winner-take-all political competition. More specifically, I allow each partisan voter to contribute to her preferred candidate where the amount contributed depends on the relative positions of the two candidates. Candidates then use the donations to build valence through campaigning, which in turn affects the voting decision of impressionable voters. Since candidates are concerned with raising money as well as picking a policy position preferred by the median voter, I show that campaign contributions may lead to divergent equilibria in winner-take-all elections when politicians are policy-motivated, albeit only under stylized utility functions and donor densities. Further, under symmetric voter and donor densities, if either the donor density is single-peaked or the voter utility is concave, a unique equilibrium exists in which both candidates propose the ideal policy of the median voter. Adapted from the source document.

The tobacco industry gave $9,424,612 in soft and PAC money to federal candidates, political parties and other political action committees in the 2001-2002 election cycle (from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2002)1. So far in the 2003-2004 election cycle, the tobacco industry has given $665,751 in PAC contributions to federal candidates, political parties and other political action committees. As enacted, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 prohibits national political parties and federal candidates and officeholders from raising soft money. Therefore, this report refers to soft money donations prior to November 6, 2002. On May 2, 2003, a three-judge panel for the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia issued a mixed ruling on key provisions of the campaign finance law. A final decision on the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, including the ban on soft money fundraising by the national parties, will be decided by Tobacco companies, along with tobacco company executives and employees, donated $6,033,226 in soft money to the Democratic and Republican parties in the 2001-2002 election cycle. Eighty (80) percent of these soft money donations ($4,813,166) went to Republican party committees and 20 percent of the soft money contributions ($1,220,060) went to Democratic party committees. Nearly half (45 percent) of these soft money donations from tobacco companies • In the 2001-2002 election cycle, tobacco company PACs donated $2,408,404 directly to federal candidates, with 77 percent ($1,857,094) of the total donations going to Republican candidates. So far in the 2003-2004 election cycle, these PACs have donated $329,500 directly to federal candidates. Sixty-four (64) percent of these contributions went to Republican candidates.

An important and pervasive view of campaign contributions is that they are given to promote access to successful candidates under circumstances when such access would not ordinarily be given. In this story, access is valuable as it offers groups the opportunity to influence legislative decisions through the provision of policy-relevant information. Under complete information regarding donors' policy preferences, I argue that this model predicts a negative relationship between contributions and the extent to which the groups' and the recipient legislators' preferences are similar. However, one of the more robust empirical findings in the literature is that this relationship is positive. Relaxing the informational assumption on donors' preferences, I reexamine the access story with a model in which campaign contributions can act as signals of policy preference and the (informational) value of access to any agent is endogenous.

Many states select judges using competitive elections. Proponents of appointment plans contend that judicial candidates may be tempted to grant favors to lawyers who donate to their campaigns, thus compromising the independence of the judiciary. I contend that previous studies have failed to rigorously test the hypothesis that campaign contributions directly affect judicial decision making. Using data from the 1998 term of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I show that lawyers who make campaign contributions are no more likely to win cases than lawyers who do not. Furthermore, the data show that judges who are faced by lawyers who contributed large amounts to their campaigns are more likely to recuse themselves. 5 Tables, 1 Figure, 36 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines the influence of campaign contributions on agricultural subsidies. Empirical results revealed that rent-seeking works, ie, contributions, influence agricultural subsidies in the manner they best serve contributors' economic interests. Eliminating campaign contributions would significantly decrease agricultural subsidies, hurt farm groups, benefit consumers & taxpayers, & increase social welfare by approximately $5.5 billion. Although contributions are not the only determinants of agricultural subsidies, investment returns to farm political action committee contributors are quite high ($1 in contributions brings about $2,000 in policy transfers). In fact, the results are in sharp contrast to the "truthful contributions" assumption of the Grossman-Helpman model. 3 Tables, 1 Appendix, 33 References. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract
This paper models information transmission in an electoral campaign. The voters have conflicting policy interests, but they are congruent in their desire to elect a competent politician. They hold private information about the candidates for office, and they use endorsements and campaign contributions to signal their information, so as to advertise their most preferred candidates. Endorsements are cheap talk, but campaign contributions are costly, hence, contributions are stronger signals than endorsements. Therefore, contributions help to transmit information when voter interests are relatively divergent (however, not so much that campaigning is useless).