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 Stylianos Papageorgiou | Posted on 4 August 2022

We characterize conditions under which the majority of voters supports a bailout despite incurring bailout expenditures. This yields inefficiently high investments when economic prospects are good. When economic prospects are...


By Stylianos Papageorgiou | Posted on 10 June 2022

A collective and an individual investment in financial literacy, plus intrinsic skills, contribute to each household's financial literacy. We show that low- and high-skilled households oppose the collective investment, contrary...


By Nicolo Fraccaroli | Posted on 25 May 2022

We investigate the link between ideology and the sentiments of parliamentarians when they speak to the central bank they hold accountable. To this end, we collect textual data on the...


By Stefano Ramelli | Posted on 28 January 2022

Donald Trump's 2016 election and his nomination of climate skeptic Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency drastically downshifted expectations about U.S. policy toward climate change. Joseph Biden's 2020...


By Kartik Anand | Posted on 22 November 2021

We examine why rational voters support risky “policy gambles”, even when detrimental to welfare, over maintaining a safe status quo. We present a model of electoral competition with two groups...


By Nicolo Fraccaroli | Posted on 10 October 2021

This paper investigates whether parliamentary hearings are effective in holding central banks accountable against their mandates. To this end, it applies text analysis on the hearings of the Bank of...


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 Orkun Saka | Posted on 16 September 2021

Recent wildfires in Turkey have not only destroyed more than 95,000 hectares of its coastal forestland but also divided the country further into its political colors. This piece discusses the...


By Orkun Saka | Posted on 4 August 2021

A rapidly expanding literature has shown the importance of political economy factors for legislative and regulatory actions in the financial sector and ultimately financial sector stability and efficiency. This column...