Open Lecture "Mega-Donors and Representation of the Wealthy in the Wake of Citizens United"

Open lecture "Mega-Donors and Representation of the Wealthy in the Wake of Citizens United" will take place on July 19 online. The event will start at 1 p.m. (Minsk, Vilnius), 12 p.m. (Warsaw).

What the lecture is about: We document that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which increased in the ability of the wealthy to finance political campaigns, the share of total electoral giving attributable to top 1% donors increased by 2.7 times. Further, we find that the voting by U.S. legislators became more responsive to the preferences of the wealthy post-Citizens United and less responsive to the preferences of the less affluent. The increase in legislators’ alignment with the wealthy is most pronounced for the bills that deal with fiscal matters and for those bills on which the preferences of higher- and lower-income individuals diverge. Finally, it is the politicians who receive a larger share of their campaign funding from the top 1% donors that are more likely to shift their voting toward the preferences of the wealthy. Overall, our results highlight the importance of campaign finance in changing the nature of political representation in the United States.

Speaker: Viktar Fedaseyeu, Associate Professor of Finance, CEIBS.
In order to participate please register no later than 6 p.m. June 18.