Page 29 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE

different types of advocacy groups. For instance, groups advocating for and

against a set of labor law measures tended to rely heavily on broadcast media
messages. Meanwhile messages broadcast through phone calls typically on

behalf of candidates were inevitably sponsored by groups affiliated with

political parties. This suggested that different advocacy groups were solving
their optimization problems in different ways. In particular, certain kinds of

political goods are likely to be more durable in nature than others and will
consequently be preferred by advocacy groups with more permanent

purposes. There are number of studies in the marketing literature on the duration
of advertisements effect, e.g., Naik (1999), Pauwels (2004), and Tellis and

Franses (2006). For instance, Naik estimates the lifetime of advertisements for

the Dockers brand about three months. For political advertisement, Hill et al.
(2008) estimate that 80 to 90 percent of the advertisement effect dissipates

within two or three days in a sample of voters in gubernatorial, Senate, and

House races in 9 Midwest media markets in the 2006 elections. Accordingly, we
assert that marketing campaigns like direct mailings and media spending are

likely to have short run impacts on political outcomes.
On the other hand, when advocacy groups use campaign

contributions to build a relationship with a candidate for office or a party
they are attempting to construct a political outcome with impacts that last

long beyond election day.

Consequently, in the paper we test for differences in the expenditure
patterns of advocacy groups relative to the type of group, the ideology of the

group, and the permanence of the group. Group types identified are party
groups, union groups, and others that might be identified with specific

issues. Ideologies are liberal and conservative and permanence relates to the
persistence of the groups over three election cycles versus activity in only

one.

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