The paper investigates whether and how a state's local corruption environment affects firms' financing costs. We find that firms in high-corruption states are associated with significantly higher loan spreads and tighter loan covenants. We use an instrumental variable approach and a...

Using corporate loan facilities and hand-matched information on bank lobbying, we show that borrower performance improves after receiving credit from lobbying banks. This especially holds for opaque borrowers, about which the lending bank possesses valuable information, as well as for borrowers...

We empirically test the hypothesis that a major in economics, management, business administration or accounting (for simplicity referred to as business/economics) leads to more-conservative (right-wing) political views. We use a panel dataset of individuals (repeated observations for the same...

China's politician selection process has been obscure and rarely discussed. This paper uses machine learning approaches to bring economic performance, political patronage and career path into one picture in understanding the provincial level politicians' selection decision of China. Through...

We study a channel through which politicians can use corporate taxes to extract firm's resources. We find that politically-connected firms pay higher taxes than their non-connected counterparts. Using election as an exogenous shock, we also observe that politically-connected firms pay higher...

We empirically test the hypothesis that a major in economics, management, business administration or accounting (for simplicity referred to as business/economics) leads to more-conservative (right-wing) political views. We use a panel dataset of individuals (repeated observations for the same...

This paper examines the economic effects of a firm's approach to developing and maintaining political connections. Specifically, we investigate whether lenders favor transactional connection as opposed to relational connection. By tracing firms in a politically volatile emerging democracy in...

This paper explores the impact of political network on insider trading activities in China. With a comprehensive network mapping links between politicians and firm Chairmen, we find that stronger political network discourages insider trading. Such effect is stronger among long-standing,...

This paper investigates whether cultural norms shaped by religion drive consumer decisions after a corporate scandal. We exploit the unexpected notice of violation by the US Environmental Protection Agency in September 2015, accusing the car producer Volkswagen (VW) to have used software to...