By Tiecheng Leng | Posted on 11 May 2023

Using data on roll-call voting patterns of U.S. state legislators from 1993 to 2016, we find a negative relationship between firm investment and state legislative polarization, measured as the ideological...


By Linxiang Ma | Posted on 3 October 2022

Ideology, the belief system about "how the society should be governed" that some group of people collectively sustains, is a critical factor that motivates economic decisions in democratic countries. However,...


By Thomas Lambert | Posted on 5 September 2022

Does democracy shape international merger activity? If so, how? The short answer is yes because democratic institutions are conducive to higher-quality corporate governance. In a new paper, we examine 104,425...


By Stefan Lewellen | Posted on 25 August 2022

We examine the causal effect of politicians' partisan ideologies on firms' industrial pollution decisions. Using a regression discontinuity design involving close U.S. congressional elections, we show that plants increase pollution...


By ALI LAZRAK | Posted on 14 June 2022

We study a standard real-option problem in which sequential decisions are made through voting by a group of members with heterogeneous beliefs. We show that, when facing both investment and...


By Logan Emery | Posted on 6 April 2022

We develop the first comprehensive mapping of the revolving door phenomenon in the U.S. by examining the work experience in executive branch agencies of 1,910,150 individuals covering top corporate positions...


By Shaoting Pi | Posted on 22 October 2021

We study firm governance when shareholders strategically vote and buy/sell shares. We find that voting for the better policy maximizes portfolio value only when pivotal; otherwise, it is better to...


By Nataliya Gerasimova | Posted on 18 October 2021

This paper provides novel evidence that female politicians increase the proportion of US government procurement contracts allocated to women-owned firms. The identification strategy uses close elections for the US House...


By Elisabeth Kempf | Posted on 4 October 2021

Does partisan perception shape the flow of international capital? We provide evidence from two settings, syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds, to show that ideological alignment with foreign governments...


By Philip Valta | Posted on 1 October 2021

We analyze a novel data set of corporate contributions to ballot initiatives and referendums at the U.S. state level. Firms make significant contributions to ballot measures in favor of or...