Malinowski, Jason2013-09-092013-09-092013http://hdl.handle.net/1773/23942This study seeks to add to the research literature on city council electoral system s by investigating the association between campaign spending and whether councilmembers are elected at - large or by district. In doing so, it incorporates an original dataset collected from various public sources and applies a m ixed effects model to account for the nesting of election contests within cities. This study finds that winning candidates for at - large contests expend approximately $76,000 more (in 2012 dollars) than district candidates after controlling for a variety of contest and city - related effects . This finding has relevance to cities that are evaluating a change to their electoral system in order to increase political participation and decrease special interest influence.en-US