1. Party Financing and the Entrance of New Presidential Candidates
Denise Laroze
PhD(c) University of Essex
Presented at MPSA
April 5, 2014

2. Motivation

3. Question
How have party finance regulations (and the costs and benefits they generate) impacted the number of new presidential candidates running for office?
Unit and time
18 Latin American , that is 113 elections

4. Theory Building on the literature regarding
The effective number of candidates (Golder 2006; Hicken, A. and H. Stoll 2008; Jones 1994, 1999, 2004, Potter and Tavits 2013; among others);
The emergence of new political parties (Cox 1997; Carreras 2012; Hug 2001; Tavits 2006, 2008)
The rise of relevant new political actors in Latin America (Carreras, 2012; Corrales, 2008; Levitsky and Cameron, 2003; Mainwaring, 2006; Tanaka, 1998; Mayoraga, 2006; Roberts, 2007; Seligson, 2002).
This paper argues that the economic incentives introduced by party finance regulations are associated with the number of new presidential candidates (NPCs).

5. Public Funding Incentives+
Potential benefits:
Funding on-going activities
Past Election
Current Election
NPCs
Inter-election years
Campaign costs:
Public funds for campaigns
Subsidies to media
Inter-election
years -
Registration Costs
Non-partisan candidates

6. Hypothesis
H1: Less restrictions on who can run for president, result, ceteris paribus, in a higher number of NPCs H2: Public funding for political campaigns is associated with a lower number of NPCs, ceteris paribus, when public funding is allocated as function of past electoral results H3: Public subsidies for media access based on past electoral results are associated with a lower number of NPCs, ceteris paribus H:4 The existence of public funds for on-going party activities, ceteris paribus, is positively associated with the number of NPCs.

7. Empirical Methods Pooled Dynamic Poisson
Robustness tests with variations of the dependent variable and methods of estimation, including:
Panel Poisson (RE and FE)
Poisson MLE with Bootstrap and Jackknife standard errors.
FEVD
Pooled OLS with country clustered standard errors

8. Results 5% Threshold I …

9. Results 5% Threshold II …

10. Robustness to Definition of DV
Other robustness tests

11. First Differences

12. Conclusion
The results of the empirical analyses provide evidence that changes in economic in incentives coincide with strategic behavior by NPCs.
These results are robust to different definitions of the dependent variable and methods of estimation.
The study has substantive policy consequences that should be considered in future regulatory reforms.
Further research:
More nuanced measures of costs and benefits of public funding.
Country specific analysis at the subnational level.

13. Thank you!!!