About PolEconFin
PolEconFin is a platform for researchers active in political economy of finance. This initiative seeks to provide a meeting point for theorists and empiricists with shared interests and build a research community with a focus on public policy.
PolEconFin comprises of two related projects:
1. The online platform to support and promote research in political economy of finance
2. The Stigler Center-CEPR Conference Series to stimulate in-person interaction between researchers
Latest Papers & Opinions
Bank Lobbying as a Financial Safety Net
I argue creditors, plausibly considering the link between bank lobbying and government bailouts, reflect the financial-safety-net aspect of bank lobbying. My structural estimation based on U.S. data suggests bank lobbying is negatively associated with the occurrence of a run-like equilibrium when a bank is subject to multiple equilibria. The estimated effect on bank risk and…
Latest Papers & Opinions
- Electoral politics
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- Empirics
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- Financial development
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- Financial markets
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- Political institutions
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- Special interest politics
Markets under Siege: How Political Beliefs Move Financial Markets
Can political beliefs, particularly about benefits of war versus peace, move thick financial markets? We document that following an unlikely victory by French citizen-soldiers during the German Siege of Paris (1870), prices of the highly liquid French sovereign bond diverged substantially and persistently there versus elsewhere. While France resisted, Parisian prices were higher and responded…
Latest Papers & Opinions
Regulatory Capture in Public Procurement
This paper studies how hiring public officials affects firms’ ability to win government contracts in Japan. We link personnel transitions of public officials to contractors and government contracts awarded to those contractors over time. Using within-firm variation, we find evidence consistent with exchange of post-public employment for increases in government contract awards. Our results suggest…
Latest Papers & Opinions
- Banking
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- Corporate finance
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- Electoral politics
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- Empirics
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- Financial markets
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- Media
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- Political institutions
Political Polarization and Finance
We review an empirical literature that studies how political polarization affects financial decisions. We first discuss the degree of partisan segregation in finance and corporate America, the mechanisms through which partisanship may influence financial decisions, and available data sources to infer individuals’ partisan leanings. We then describe and discuss the empirical evidence. Our review suggests…
Latest Papers & Opinions
Voting on Public Goods: Citizens vs Shareholders
We study the interplay between a “one person-one vote” political system and “one share-one vote” corporate governance regime. The political system sets Pigouvian subsidies, while corporate governance determines firm-specific public good investments. Our analysis highlights a two-way feedback effect. In a frictionless economy, shareholder democracy is irrelevant: the political system fully offsets any effects of…
Latest Papers & Opinions
Valuing Peace: The Effects of Financial Market Exposure on Votes and Political Attitudes
Can participation in financial markets lead individuals to reevaluate the costs of conflict, change their political attitudes, and even their votes? Prior to the 2015 Israeli elections, we randomly assigned Palestinian and Israeli financial assets to likely voters and incentivized them to actively trade for up to 7 weeks. No political messages or nonfinancial information…
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Behind this initiative
PolEconFin comprises of two related projects:
1. The online platform to support and promote research in political economy of finance
2. The CEPR Conference Series to stimulate in-person interaction between researchers
