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The three essays of this thesis cover two sets of topics: search in auction platforms in the first two papers, and political campaigning in the last. In platform settings, search cost reductions are often regarded as beneficial because they improve match quality. But is this in fact true? And if it is true in an aggregate sense, what are the consequences to individual platform participants? Do individual buyers and sellers win or lose? The first paper develops a novel model of search in platforms and applies it to auction platforms to test the popular hypothesis that lower search costs are always beneficial to sellers. Under certain assumptions, we find that while lower search costs is welfare improving, its distributional consequences are less predictable. In general, lower search costs intesify buyer-side competition. On the one hand, this tends to improve seller revenues due to better matches; on the other hand, this may also thin out markets for certain sellers, since lower search costs make it easier for buyers to search out of certain markets. Generally, some sellers gain and some lose; most surprisingly, however, we find that overall seller revenue can decrease with lower search costs. Our second paper extends the model to endogenize buyer participation - so some buyers may leave the platform completely - and considers optimal platform search policy in such settings. Under stricter assumptions, we find that a platform that taxes the seller side generally benefits from lower search costs; a platform that charges buyers, however, may maximize search costs, since the gains from easier search are unevenly distributed among buyers, and may be inefficiently extracted with a fee. The final essay provides a novel model of political campaigning as argumentation, which brings together two different strands of the campaign spending literature: spending has direct effects on electoral outcomes, but also provide a "signal" of candidate quality. The model parsimoniously resolves many pre-existing campaign spending "paradoxes" while delivering new results on the effects and desirability of spending caps. / Economics

nÃo hà / A presente pesquisa busca analisar os impactos de variÃveis polÃticas e socioeconÃmicas sobre o sucesso eleitoral de um candidato ao legislativo, a partir de um estudo empÃrico com base na votaÃÃo das eleiÃÃes de 2010 para o cargo de Deputado Estadual no Estado do Cearà e segundo duas regiÃes: RegiÃo Metropolitana de Fortaleza e Interior do Estado. Para alcanÃar os objetivos propostos, sÃo utilizados modelos de regressÃes mÃltiplas estimados por MÃnimos Quadrados OrdinÃrios e RegressÃes QuantÃlicas, com vistas a possibilitar uma maior caracterizaÃÃo da distribuiÃÃo condicional das variÃveis analisadas. Na prÃtica, esta Ãltima tÃcnica permite investigar potenciais diferenÃas no impacto das variÃveis para elevados e baixos Ãndices de votaÃÃo. Dentre os resultados encontrados, se verifica a influÃncia positiva das variÃveis explicativas estatisticamente significantes inseridas nos modelos, em diferentes nÃveis de impacto de acordo com a regiÃo em anÃlise, em especial as variÃveis que tratam das despesas e receitas de campanha, da reeleiÃÃo de candidatos e das ligaÃÃes partidÃrias com o governo estadual e com as prefeituras municipais na Ãpoca da campanha, suscitando assim uma reflexÃo sobre a necessidade de realizaÃÃo de uma reforma polÃtica e eleitoral no paÃs visando proporcionar condiÃÃes mais igualitÃrias aos pleitos. / This research seeks to analyze the impacts of political and socioeconomic variables on the electoral success of a candidate to the legislature, from an empirical study based on the voting of the 2010 elections for the office of State Representative in the State of Cearà and in two regions: Fortaleza Metropolitan Region and Inner State. To achieve the proposed objectives, multiple regression models estimated by OLS and quantile regressions are used in order to enable greater characterization of the conditional distribution of the variables. In practice, this latter technique allows to investigate potential differences in the impact of the variables for high and low rates of voting. Among the findings, it appears the positive influence of statistically significant explanatory variables included in the models at different levels of impact according to the region in question, especially the variables dealing with expenses and campaign revenue, the re-election of candidates and of party connections with the state government and the municipal governments at the time of the campaign, inspiring a reflection on the need to carry out a political and electoral reform in the country aiming to provide more equal conditions for elections.

In a time when record numbers of dollars are being spent on campaigns the unregulated dollars are flowing faster than ever. Hundreds of millions of dollars in independent expenditures are being used for “issue advocacy”, print and broadcast advertising, which does not expressly endorse or oppose a candidate for office. The one-time campaign finance ceiling has become the campaign finance basement. Individuals are able to give unlimited dollars to 527 organizations, which function outside of all campaign finance regulation and provide a new path for the flow of political dollars. Since the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act, federally regulated lobbyists and PACS are being edged out of the political dollar due to contribution limits. It is in 1996 that we witness the birth of 527 organizations and the flourishing growth of soft money spending in the campaign process.