Papers & Opinions


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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...

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Posted on 17 January 2022

This paper investigates the political ties of too-big-to-fail bank boards in crisis times. We argue that after a bailout, governments are likely to influence bank board compositions to secure control...

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Posted on 8 December 2021

This paper examines the incidence of special interests in the allocation of loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). We find that lobbying at the firm and industry levels helps...

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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...

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Posted on 15 November 2021

I document that political connections are an important driver of investment strategies of U.S. mutual funds. I collect data on mutual fund holdings of U.S. Congress members and equity holdings...

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Posted on 8 November 2021

In a general equilibrium framework, we study the cost incurred by banks to ''buy" influence on capital regulation via campaign contributions. Our central result is that banks buy influence at...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Posted on 27 September 2021

We analyze the partisanship of Securities and Exchange Commissioners (SEC) and members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (Fed). Using the language-based approach of Gentzkow, Shapiro, and Taddy (Econometrica,...

Paper


Posted on 25 September 2021

What explains the worldwide changes in central bank design over the past five decades? Using a new dataset on central bank institutional design, this paper investigates the timing, pace and...

Paper


Posted on 21 September 2021

Risk premia are significantly elevated during periods of democratization in a cross-country panel of equity data covering 85 countries over 200 years, despite little evidence of a negative effect on...

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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...