We exploit one of the largest reform of dividend taxation in France in 2012 to estimate the effect of an increase in dividend tax rate on corporate policies, using administrative data covering the universe of firms and employees. In a difference-in-difference setting, we find that exposed firms...

As ever more technology is deployed to process and transmit financial data, this could benefit society, by allowing capital to be allocated more efficiently. Recent work supports this notion. Bai, Philippon and Savov (2016) document an improvement in the ability of S&P 500 equity prices to...

This paper provides causal evidence of local innovation spillovers, i.e. innovation by one firm fostering innovation by neighboring firms. First, I document that exogenous shocks to innovation by listed firms affect innovation by private firms in the same geographical area. I also find that such...

We study how financial development affects economic development and wage inequality. We use a large expansion of government-owned banks into Brazilian cities with low bank branch coverage and combine it with data on the universe of employees from 2000-2014. We find that higher financial...

Formally independent private banks change their supply of credit to the corporate sector for the constituencies of contested political incumbents in order to improve their reelection prospects. In return, politicians grant such banks access to the profitable market for loans to local public...

As financial technology improves and data becomes more abundant, do market prices reflect this data growth? While recent studies documented rises in the information content of prices, we show that, across asset types, there is data divergence. Large, growth stock prices increasingly reflect...

We show that foreign capital liberalization reduces capital misallocation and increases aggregate productivity in India. The staggered liberalization of access to foreign capital across disaggregated industries allows us to identify changes in firms' input wedges, overcoming major challenges in...