We study the role of firms' political influence on the effectiveness of government spending using ARRA as a laboratory. Through an IV approach, we show that a 10 percentage points increase in the share of politically connected spending lowers the job creation effect of stimulus by 33 percent at...

This paper explores how international sanctions affect authoritarian rulers’ decisions concerning repression and public spending composition, and how different authoritarian rulers respond to foreign pressure. If sanctions are assumed to increase the price of loyalty to the regime, then rulers...