Papers & Opinions

Electoral politics | Empirics | Political institutions

Mega-Donors and Representation of the Wealthy in the Wake of Citizens United

Paper

Posted on 25 April 2024

By Guosong Xu

We document that in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which increased in the ability of the wealthy to finance political campaigns, the share of total electoral...
READ MORE

Financial markets | Media

Friends in Low Places: The Impact of Political Scandals on Connected Firms’ Stock Prices

Paper

Posted on 24 October 2022

By Susanne Preuss

Having “friends in high places” can bring many benefits. But what happens if these “friends” are involved in shady business dealings, use taxpayer funds to finance lavish offices or vacations,...
READ MORE

Banking | Special interest politics | Theory

Bank Influence at a Discount

Paper

Posted on 8 November 2021

By Stylianos Papageorgiou

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...
READ MORE

Corporate finance

Direct Democracy, Corporate Political Strategy, and Firm Value

Paper

Posted on 1 October 2021

By Philip Valta

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...
READ MORE

Corporate finance | Empirics

Political Attitudes, Partisanship, and Merger Activity

Paper

Posted on 2 September 2021

By Ran Duchin

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...
READ MORE