Buying votes: estimates of the effects of election spending in 2006 elections in Federal District

Abstract

This study estimates the impact of campaign spending on the results of legislative elections in Brazilian Federal District in 2006. The effect of spending is smaller than expected and characteristics of the political history of candidates play a significant role on the amount of votes received. The impact of spending on the result gets smaller when spending gets larger, making the high electoral spending look exaggerated. Even though money has some importance for the electoral result, it “buys” much less votes than variable “power”.