How do campaign contribution limits alter the influence of donors over elected officials? We propose a model to explore this question and test its implications using data from Colombian municipalities. Using a regression discontinuity design that exploits institutional rules determining contribution limits based on population thresholds, we find that looser campaign limits reduce the number of donors per candidate and increase the average donations received by the winner of the election.

Ian Holliday is Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) at the University of Hong Kong. Previously he was Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at City University of Hong Kong. He was educated at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The Other Bulgaria is a term deeply embedded in the Bulgarian socio-political discourse in relation to outward migratory flows, which have seen a 10% decrease of the country’s population between 1992 and 2012 alone (OECD, 2012). This phenomenon is contextualised in wider European processes of intensified integration, leading to the EU’s first and second wave of Eastern enlargement. However, such cosmopolitan trends have always been in tension with nationalist sentiments, the latter becoming more prominent in the last few years.

Chair: Tim Vlandas, St Antony’s College