Desirability and effects of campaign spending limits

This paper measures the influence of campaign spending on incumbent and challenger votes in Canadian federal elections. The goal is to assess the influence of spending ceilings on political competition and on voter welfare. It is found that in the 1984 and 1988 Canadian federal elections challengers could increase their voteshare by spending but that incumbents could not. These results are used in a simulation to show that if ceilings were lowered, incumbent voteshare would rise. On this evidence it is argued that spending ceilings may tilt the playing field in favour of incumbents and reduce political competition.