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Article: The Political Economics of Campaign Finance.
- Article from:
- Independent Review
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Independent Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The public debate over campaign-finance reform is often framed as necessitating an unfortunate trade off between the liberal ideals of free speech and association on one side and the democratic ideals of equal representation and participation on the other. But despite frequent calls for dramatic action, the terms of the tradeoff are not well-understood. In this regard as in others, the study of the political economics of campaign finance is more notable for its faults and oversights than for its contributions. Scholarly work on campaign finance provides little basis for a cost-benefit analysis of proposed campaign-finance reforms.
First, no one has analyzed ...