候选人素质的估计
Estimating Candidate Valence
Econometrica · 2025 · [{"name": "Kei Kawai", "affiliation": ["The University of Tokyo", "University of California, Berkeley"]}, {"name": "Takeaki Sunada", "affiliation": ["University of Rochester"]}]
中文摘要
我们利用得票份额数据，估计了美国众议院选举中候选人的素质度量。我们的识别与估计策略建立在用于估计生产函数的思想之上，使我们能够控制竞选支出的潜在内生性，以及由内生参选导致的候选人样本选择问题。我们发现，现任者的素质度量显著高于与其竞争的挑战者，平均而言导致约3.5个百分点的得票份额差异。消除挑战者与现任者之间的素质差异，会使挑战者的获胜概率从6.5%提高到12.1%。我们的候选人素质度量可用于研究政治经济学中的各种实质性问题。我们通过研究美国众议院选举中现任优势的来源，说明了其效用。
Abstract
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.