We apply a regression discontinuity approach to determine incumbency advantages in the Canadian Parliament, finding that incumbents enjoy a 9.4-11.2% increased probability of winning over non-incumbents. Owing to the presence of multiple parties, an incumbency advantage in terms of vote share does not always translate to an increased probability of winning, because incumbents do not necessarily obtain votes from their closest opponent. Also, under the assumption that strategic exit is not an issue, we are able to split the incumbency advantage into party incumbency and individual candidate incumbency components, finding that the advantage is almost entirely due to the individual.Les avantages de l'élu en place dans lesélections au Parlement du Canada. On utilise une approche par la méthode de régression avec discontinuité pour déterminer les avantages qu'il y aàêtre l'élu en place dans lesélections au Parlement du Canada. On découvre que lesélus en place ont une probabilité de gagner de 9.4à 11.2% de plus que leurs adversaires. A cause de la présence de multiples partis politiques, l'avantage de l'élu en place en termes de proportion du vote ne se traduit pas toujours par une probabilité accrue de gagner parce que lesélus en place ne capturent pas nécessairement les votes de leur plus proche adversaire. De plus, en présumant qu'il ne s'agit pas de sortie stratégique, on peut départager l'avantage de l'élu en place en composantes correspondantà l'effet de parti et l'effet de l'individu. On découvre que l'avantage est presque complètement attribuableà l'individu.We would like to thank Kevin Milligan for his helpful comments and suggestions as well as the Library of Parliament for access to the data. SSHRC (Rekkas) support is gratefully acknowledged.

The impact of candidate campaign spending on votes and abstention in multiparty elections is estimated from the specification of a structural model of voter behavior. This model accounts for the endogeneity of campaign spending as well as the heterogeneity in voter preferences. Empirical results are estimated from aggregate (actual) election data. The results demonstrate the importance of spending during the campaign period and voter heterogeneity with respect to these expenditures. The own- and cross-expenditure vote share elasticity estimates reveal that political campaign spending not only redistributes voters across parties but also decreases the size of the abstaining group of the electorate. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

We study the impact of campaign spending limits for candidates in Canadian federal elections. We first demonstrate that spending limits are binding mostly for incumbent candidates. We then use this information to produce endogeneity-corrected estimates for the impact of incumbent spending on electoral vote shares. Furthermore, we examine the impact of spending limits on broader measures of electoral outcomes, finding that larger limits lead to less close elections, fewer candidates, and lower voter turnout.Milligan is also affiliated with the NBER. We thank two anonymous referees, the editor, and participants at the CEA conference, the WEA conference, and the UBC empirical lunch seminar for comments. Funding from SSHRC is gratefully acknowledged.

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