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Political and Economic Factors Affecting Agricultural PAC Contribution Strategies
Author(s) -
Van Doren Terry D.,
Hoag Dana L.,
Field Thomas G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1244590
Subject(s) - tobit model , agriculture , legislature , politics , livestock , ideology , political science , economics , agricultural economics , public economics , political economy , geography , law , forestry , econometrics , archaeology
Abstract Public choice describes a marketplace for political favors that could explain strong support for agriculture. While many researchers have studied political markets, few have examined agriculture. This study addresses contributions from twenty‐six PAC aggregates to senators in the 103rd Congress. Using a tobit model, legislative attributes, such as tenure, committee membership, and ideology, were regressed on contributions. Overall, the agricultural industry targeted nonsenior, conservative Democrats from agriculturally dependent states in close election races and who served either on the agriculture committee or the agriculture appropriations committee. However, many differences were found across subsectors within agriculture, such as crops and livestock.