Firms establish political connections when they either donate money to the political parties or appoint politicians on the board of directors of the company. These political connections are found to facilitate access to credit, among various other things. Creating a new and unique dataset of...

In developing countries, households are faced with institutional constraints like missing or incomplete markets for credit, which leads to high transaction costs. Therefore, it is difficult to take advantage of income-generating opportunities. Households build social and political connections to...