We use novel hand-collected data on political connections to find politically connected firms earn more positive (less negative) Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CARs) than those without political connections as a response to favorable (unfavorable) macroeconomic news. Using the...

Most people believe that large corporations wield enormous political power when they lobby for policies as a cohesive bloc. With this controversial book, Mark A. Smith sets conventional wisdom on its head. In a systematic analysis of postwar lawmaking, Smith reveals that business loses in...

Using a large, original database of 385 politically connected firms under the Mubarak regime in Egypt, we document for the first time the negative impact of cronyism on economic growth. In the early 2000s, a policy shift in Egypt led to the expansion of crony activities into new, previously...

This paper investigates whether political connections affect individuals' propensity to engage in illegal activities in financial markets. We use the 2007 French presidential election as marker of change in the value of political connections, in a difference-in-differences research design. We...

Extant literature suggests that audit firms establish political connections at the national level to lobby regulators and legislators. In this paper we construct a novel dataset of Big 4 auditors’ political connections at the audit office level and examine the implications of auditors’...

Public opinion, lobbying and elections have important effects on the formation of trade policy in democracies. This paper attempts to explain how lobbying expenditures can influence the outcome of an election fought over trade policy. Voters are assumed to own both capital and labour. The...