Papers & Opinions


Paper


Posted on 22 December 2023

This study explores whether firms adjust their liquidity in response to heightened uncertainty and expropriation risk associated with populism. Using an event study approach, we consistently find that firms reduce...

Opinion


Posted on 6 November 2023

This year’s edition of the CEPR Conference Series on the Political Economy of Finance took place in the beautiful Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam. This edition gathered a great lineup of scholars...

Paper


Posted on 5 October 2023

We formalize Zingales' (2017) argument about the link between corporate economic characteristics and political influence in a setup that exhibits an inverse relationship between citizens' participation in production and the...

Paper


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...

Paper


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,...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


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...

Paper


Posted on 20 September 2021

This paper studies voting in shareholders meetings. We focus on the informational efficiency of different voting mechanisms, taking into account that they affect both management's incentives before the meeting and...

Paper


Posted on 2 September 2021

We demonstrate that similarity in employees’ political attitudes plays an important role in mergers and acquisitions. Using detailed data on employees’ campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans, we find that...