Modes of Fundraising and Improvements in Donation-Based Ideology Estimates

• In Event: Impact of Money in Politics on Political Elites and Institutions

Abstract

Donations to political candidates have been used to estimate the revealed preferences of politicians, donors, interest groups, and other political elites. The approaches to do so rely on the assumption that money donated to candidates is largely driven by ideological proximity, with many also accounting statistically for the possibility of confounding due to investment motivations. New research has demonstrated that the mode of giving — whether or not donations are made in the course of attending a fundraising event — is associated with non-ideological donation motivations, both at the donor and the donation level. However, the existing methods for estimating ideology scores do not directly incorporate this information. In this paper, we seek to examine whether or not information about the mode of giving can help improve donation-based ideology estimates. We intend to show that by incorporating information about fundraising events, the ideology scores of candidates and donors can be more accurately estimated, especially for candidates who rely heavily on event donations. Further, we aim to show how in the absence of information on the mode of giving, researchers can use more readily available proxy variables that contain information about donations to achieve similar improvements. These results are intended to further strengthen researchers' ability to employ the powerful tool of donation-based ideology estimates in social scientific research.

Authors

• Sean Kates, University of Pennsylvania

• Sebastian Thieme, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse