In 1964, inflation measured a little more than 1 percent. It had been in this vicinity over the preceding six years. Inflation began ratcheting upward in the mid-1960s and reached more than 14 percent in 1980.

Since the 1980s, the amount spent on elections by campaigns and outside groups, as measured by the Federal Election Commission, has grown 700 percent—faster than increases in the costs of health care and college tuition.

A thought is that the politics surrounding the challenges of inflation drove more small (less than $500) political donations from new, first time political donors.

U.S. inflation is now hitting new 40-year highs, jumping 7.9 percent over past year, the sharpest spike since 1982.

With inflation driving political discourse and kitchen table issues on main street today, what can political giving trends & inflation trends from the 1980's tell us about the next cycle of political investment? With more people feeling the impact of inflation, like in the 1980's, are we entering a new era of more targeted political investment & participation?

Any thoughts to share, or outside resources, or time on the calendar with me to discuss the relationship between inflation and political giving would be very much appreciated!

There are interesting days ahead. The timing for a better way to invest politically could not be better.

Saurabh Nagrecha

about 4 years ago

Catching bad guys with network science! @ Google

[outside resource + time on calendar]

One of my favorite resources for macroeconomic findings, and other publicly visible action items has been https://www.gdeltproject.org/. I haven't used it in a while but if they haven't changed their access policy drastically, I would strongly advocate towards using it as a resource. I can also spend some time with you a) screensharing at a high level and then b) interactively diving into answering your specific questions out of it.

Since the data here is more than likely to be layered through PACs and other obfuscated orgs, I don't expect to immediately find first-degree ties through publicly visible data. However the following two look like good initial-starts:

* https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/?tab=bulk-data

* https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup DISCLAIMER: I do not know about the veracity of open secrets' data and/or any agenda they might be affiliated with. Use with care.

One way to structure this would be: how has the "narrative" of political donation shifted? (we can roughly use the same concept used in the Overton Window here) ... So in the end you have in your hands a picture of:

* How much money (per category of interest) has been spent?

- what has the influx, momentum etc per category been?

- what contexts (see GDELT as a source here) fuel additional donations towards a certain cause?

* What topics are getting any funding?

- if I wanted funding for my cause, what's my best-bet-portfolio?

- if I am a political candidate, what would be my best-bet-portfolio of causes?

* What variables to consider?

- causes

- PACs, politicians

- external news events

- macroeconomic indicators

- [additionally] OFAC SDNs? (https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/specially-designated-nationals-and-blocked-persons-list-sdn-human-readable-lists)

At the end of the day, I would say we can pick at any of these topics at a depth/breadth first level and figure out what you'd get the most value out of during our call. If the simple aim is to do an exploratory analysis, I'll need to rely on your vision with Sprinkle to tell me what's worthwhile/not-worthwhile :)

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