Estimating Candidate Valence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kawai, Kei; Sunada, Takeaki
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of Tokyo; University of Rochester
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20496
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 463-501
• 关键词: incumbency advantage; election outcomes; dynamic-models; campaign; COMPETITION; QUALITY; party; INFORMATION; selection; DESIGN

摘要

We estimate valence measures of candidates running in U.S. House elections from data on vote shares. Our identification and estimation strategy builds on ideas developed for estimating production functions, allowing us to control for possible endogeneity of campaign spending and sample selection of candidates due to endogenous entry. We find that incumbents have substantially higher valence measures than challengers running against them, resulting in about 3.5 percentage-point differences in the vote share, on average. Eliminating differences in the valence of challengers and incumbents results in an increase in the winning probability of a challenger from 6.5% to 12.1%. Our measure of candidate valence can be used to study various substantive questions of political economy. We illustrate its usefulness by studying the source of incumbency advantage in U.S. House elections.