Empirical Research Database


1		Public Financing Laws and Trigger Laws
2	Date	Title	Author(s)	Citation Type	Data Examined	Question(s) Asked	Key Findings

3	2014	Subsidizing Democracy: How Public Funding Changes Elections and How It Can Work in the Future	Michael G. Miller	Book	Surveys of candidates for state legislative offices across 18 states in 2006 and 2008, comparing how candidates who do and do not receive public funding spend their campaigning time.	To understand how public funding affects the strategy, behavior, and emotions of candidates and voters alike.	Full public funding “allows candidates to focus solely on the campaign for votes, which results in many more direct interactions with voters.”
4	2013	Small Donors: Incentives, Economies of Scale, and Effects	Michael J. Malbin	Academic Journal	Existing empirical literature on small donor public financing.	To assess the potential role and impact of small donors.	The effects of tax credits and refunds on public participation are mixed. Studies of New York City’s matching funds system indicated increased participation, but those results have not been replicated in other locations.
5	2012	Donor Diversity Through Public Matching Funds	Elisabeth Genn, Michael J. Malbin, Sundeep Iyer, and Brendan Glavin	Report	Contribution data from New York City’s publicly financed election in 2009 compared to contribution data from New York State’s privately financed election in 2010.	To examine the potential benefits of public financing.	New York City’s matching funds program “contributed to a fundamental change in the relationship between candidates and their donors,” and encouraged donations from a more diverse set of residents.
6	2012	Does Public Financing Chill Political Speech? Exploiting a Court Injunction as a Natural Experiment	Conor M. Dowling, Ryan D. Enos, Anthony Fowler, and Costas Panagopoulos	Law Journal	Spending data for candidates who did and did not participate in public financing programs in two states (Arizona 2006-2010; Maine 2000-2010).	To understand whether public financing chills political speech.	There is no evidence that candidate spending is strategic around the triggering threshold, or that such laws have a chilling effect on political speech.
7	2011	Do Maine’s Public Funding Program’s Trigger Provisions Have a Chilling Effect on Fundraising?	Anthony Gierzynski	Law Journal	Fundraising results for privately funded Maine House of Representative candidates who ran against publically funded opponents from 2002 to 2010.	To understand whether the trigger provisions in Maine’s public funding program have a chilling effect on fundraising in elections.	Finding no evidence that “that the public funding trigger provision ‘chills’ fund raising or spending.”
8	2011	Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 721 (2011), Municipal Brief Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondents, 2011 WL 1209128.	Municipal amici	Litigation	Evidence from the record.	Does the First Amendment prohibit linking the funds participating candidates receive in an election to the amount of money raised by or spent on behalf of their opponents?	“High-spending non-participants are simply not forgoing speech opportunities in order to curb a participating opponent’s bonus payments.”
9	2011	Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 721 (2011), Brief of Amici Curiae Maine Citizens for Clean Elections Lawrence Bliss, Pamela Jabar Trinward, Andrew O’Brien, & David Van Wie in Support of Respondents, 2011 WL 686403.	Amici	Litigation	Evidence from the record on Maine’s public financing system.	Does the First Amendment prohibit linking the funds participating candidates receive in an election to the amount of money raised by or spent on behalf of their opponents?	“Analysis of spending by privately financed candidates in Maine elections for the past decade also shows no evidence of a chilling effect from the trigger provisions.”
10	2006	Campaign Finance Laws and Political Efficacy: Evidence from the States	David M. Primo and Jeffrey Milyo	Law Journal	An analysis of National Election Survey data measuring political trust and efficacy from 1948 to 2000, regressed to predict how indications of trust changed based on the implementation of various campaign finance laws.	To understand whether campaign finance regulations affect political efficacy and citizens’ trust in government.	Public financing laws negatively affect citizens’ belief in their political power.
11	2003	The Impact of Public Finance Laws on Fundraising in State Legislative Elections	Peter L. Francia and Paul S. Herrnson	Academic Journal	Survey response data from a national sample of more than 2,000 state legislative candidates who ran for office in 50 states between 1998 and 2000.	To determine whether public funding reduces the time that candidates devote to fundraising.	Candidates who used full public funding spent less time fundraising overall.“Full public funding has the potential to redirect modern campaign efforts away from the “money chase”.”
12	2002	Money and Challenger Emergence in Gubernatorial Primaries	Kedron Bardwell	Academic Journal	Primary election spending data in a variety of gubernatorial elections from 1980 to 2000, focusing on the extent to which a range of campaign finance laws are correlated with electoral competitiveness.	To examine incumbency, financial competitiveness, and whether campaign finance laws help or hinder challengers.	“[T]he average primary challenger spends only 16% as much money as the incumbent” but “[p]ublic money makes a run against the incumbent feasible for potentially strong challengers” who cannot effectively raise private money.