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Financing UK democracy : a stocktake of 20 years of political donations
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Draca, Mirko, Green, Colin and Homroy, Swarnodeep (2022) Financing UK democracy : a stocktake of 20 years of political donations. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Department of Economics. Warwick economics research papers series (WERPS) (1431). (Unpublished)
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Official URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w...
Abstract
Political donations in the UK have been subject to comprehensive disclosure since 2001. We study the data produced as part of this disclosure policy to evaluate the role of private and public political finance over time. Total political donations have grown by 250% since 2001, reaching over £100 million in real terms for the first time in 2019. This increase has been driven by donations from private individuals, who now account for approximately 60% of donations in election years compared to 40-50% up to the late 2010s. Furthermore,
‘superdonors’ (those contributing more than £100,000) have been a prominent driver of the rise, increasing their own share from approximately 36% in 2017 to 46% in 2019. We also show that private donations to Labour fell sharply in the final stages of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Overall, these trends have benefited the Conservative Party, leading to an historic resource gap between the two main parties emerging circa 2019. We calculate that the ‘resource gap’ between parties now stands at approximately £27 million compared to an
historic average of £8-10 million (even when taking account of publicly-funded ‘Short’ money provided to the Opposition)
| Item Type: | Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper) | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HG Finance J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Finance, Public -- Great Britain, Campaign funds -- Great Britain, Campaign funds -- Law and legislation -- Great Britain, Corporations -- Finance | ||||||
| Series Name: | Warwick economics research papers series (WERPS) | ||||||
| Publisher: | University of Warwick. Department of Economics | ||||||
| Place of Publication: | Coventry | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0083-7350 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 14 October 2022 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Number: | 1431 | ||||||
| Number of Pages: | 28 | ||||||
| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
| Description: | This paper also appears as CAGE Discussion paper 642 |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 19 October 2022 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 19 October 2022 | ||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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