Abstract
We study the persuasive eects of political advertising. Our empirical strategy ex- ploits FCC regulations that result in plausibly exogenous variation in the number of impressions across the borders of neighboring counties. Applying this approach to uniquely detailed data on television advertisement broadcasts and viewership patterns during the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, our results indicate that total political advertising has virtually no impact on aggregate turnout. The point estimates are precise enough to rule out even moderately sized eects. By contrast, wend a positive and economically meaningful eect of advertising on candidates' vote shares. Evidence from a regression discontinuity design with millions of ob- servations suggests that advertising aects election results by altering the partisan composition of the electorate.
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