[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v111y2014i1p86-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of stock ownership by US members of Congress on the market for political favors

Author

Listed:
  • Tahoun, Ahmed
Abstract
I examine whether stock ownership by politicians helps to enforce noncontractible quid pro quo relations with firms. The ownership by US Congress members in firms contributing to their election campaigns is higher than in noncontributors. This bias toward contributors depends on the financial incentives of politicians and the relation's value. Firms with a stronger ownership–contribution association receive more government contracts. The financial gains from these contracts are economically large. When politicians divest stocks, firms discontinue contributions to the politicians, lose future contracts, and perform poorly. Politicians divest the stocks in contributors, but not in noncontributors, in anticipation of retirement.

Suggested Citation

  • Tahoun, Ahmed, 2014. "The role of stock ownership by US members of Congress on the market for political favors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 86-110.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:111:y:2014:i:1:p:86-110
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.10.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X13002705
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.10.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claessens, Stijn & Feijen, Erik & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "Political connections and preferential access to finance: The role of campaign contributions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 554-580, June.
    2. Paul R. Milgrom & Douglass C. North & Barry R. Weingast*, 1990. "The Role Of Institutions In The Revival Of Trade: The Law Merchant, Private Judges, And The Champagne Fairs," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 1-23, March.
    3. Sapienza, Paola, 2004. "The effects of government ownership on bank lending," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 357-384, May.
    4. Shawn Cole, 2009. "Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Agricultural Credit in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 219-250, January.
    5. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "A Constant Recontracting Model of Sovereign Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 155-178, February.
    6. Aggarwal, Rajesh K. & Meschke, Felix & Wang, Tracy Yue, 2012. "Corporate Political Donations: Investment or Agency?," Business and Politics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-38, April.
    7. Carmichael, H Lorne & MacLeod, W Bentley, 1997. "Gift Giving and the Evolution of Cooperation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(3), pages 485-509, August.
    8. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    9. Ramanna, Karthik, 2008. "The implications of unverifiable fair-value accounting: Evidence from the political economy of goodwill accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2-3), pages 253-281, August.
    10. Weingast, Barry R & Marshall, William J, 1988. "The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 132-163, February.
    11. Leuz, Christian & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2006. "Political relationships, global financing, and corporate transparency: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 411-439, August.
    12. Grier, Kevin B & Munger, Michael C, 1991. "Committee Assignments, Constituent Preferences, and Campaign Contributions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(1), pages 24-43, January.
    13. Kroszner, Randall S & Stratmann, Thomas, 1998. "Interest-Group Competition and the Organization of Congress: Theory and Evidence from Financial Services' Political Action Committees," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1163-1187, December.
    14. Efraim Benmelech & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2010. "The Political Economy of Financial Regulation: Evidence from U.S. State Usury Laws in the 19th Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1029-1073, June.
    15. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    16. Eitan Goldman & Jörg Rocholl & Jongil So, 2009. "Do Politically Connected Boards Affect Firm Value?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2331-2360, June.
    17. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & Alexei V. Ovtchinnikov, 2010. "Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(2), pages 687-724, April.
    18. Arthur van Soest & Arie Kaptey, 2006. "Savings, Portfolio Choice, and Retirement Expectations," Working Papers wp119, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    19. Saltuk Ozerturk, 2007. "Stock recommendation of an analyst who trades on own account," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(3), pages 768-785, September.
    20. Kroszner Randall S. & Stratmann Thomas S., 2000. "Congressional Committees as Reputation-building Mechanisms," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, April.
    21. Stratmann, Thomas, 1995. "Campaign Contributions and Congressional Voting: Does the Timing of Contributions Matter?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(1), pages 127-136, February.
    22. Jayachandran, Seema, 2006. "The Jeffords Effect," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(2), pages 397-425, October.
    23. MARA FACCIO & RONALD W. MASULIS & JOHN J. McCONNELL, 2006. "Political Connections and Corporate Bailouts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2597-2635, December.
    24. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    25. Ziobrowski, Alan J. & Cheng, Ping & Boyd, James W. & Ziobrowski, Brigitte J., 2004. "Abnormal Returns from the Common Stock Investments of the U.S. Senate," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 661-676, December.
    26. Snyder, James M, Jr, 1990. "Campaign Contributions as Investments: The U.S. House of Representatives, 1980-1986," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1195-1227, December.
    27. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    28. Stratmann, Thomas, 1998. "The Market for Congressional Votes: Is Timing of Contributions Everything?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 85-113, April.
    29. Veitch, John M., 1986. "Repudiations and Confiscations by the Medieval State," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 31-36, March.
    30. Leslie Boni & Kent L. Womack, 2002. "Wall Street’s Credibility Problem: Misaligned Incentives and Dubious Fixes?," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 02-04, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    31. Lauren Cohen, 2009. "Loyalty-Based Portfolio Choice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1213-1245, March.
    32. Lauren Cohen, 2009. "Loyalty-Based Portfolio Choice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1213-1245.
    33. Aggarwal Rajesh K. & Meschke Felix & Wang Tracy Yue, 2012. "Corporate Political Donations: Investment or Agency?," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-40, April.
    34. Johnson, Simon & Mitton, Todd, 2003. "Cronyism and capital controls: evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 351-382, February.
    35. Mara Faccio, 2006. "Politically Connected Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 369-386, March.
    36. Karthik Ramanna & Sugata Roychowdhury, 2010. "Elections and Discretionary Accruals: Evidence from 2004," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 445-475, May.
    37. Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Atif Mian, 2005. "Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent Provision in an Emerging Financial Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1371-1411.
    38. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    39. David P. Baron, 1989. "Service-Induced Campaign Contributions and the Electoral Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 45-72.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahmed Tahoun & Laurence van Lent, 2016. "The Personal Wealth Interests of Politicians and the Stabilization of Financial Markets," Working Papers Series 52, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    2. Miroslav Palanský, 2021. "The value of political connections in the post-transition period: evidence from Czechia," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 121-154, July.
    3. Correia, Maria M., 2014. "Political connections and SEC enforcement," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 241-262.
    4. Ilona Babenko & Viktar Fedaseyeu & Song Zhang, 2017. "Do CEOs affect employees' political choices?," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1750, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    5. Feng, Xunan & Johansson, Anders C. & Zhang, Tianyu, 2015. "Mixing business with politics: Political participation by entrepreneurs in China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 220-235.
    6. Braam, Geert & Nandy, Monomita & Weitzel, Utz & Lodh, Suman, 2015. "Accrual-based and real earnings management and political connections," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 111-141.
    7. Elvira Sojli & Wing Wah Tham, 2017. "Foreign political connections," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(2), pages 244-266, February.
    8. Chkir, Imed & Gallali, Mohamed Imen & Toukabri, Manara, 2020. "Political connections and corporate debt: Evidence from two U.S. election campaigns," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 229-239.
    9. Quoc-Anh Do & Yen-Teik Lee & Bang Dang Nguyen, 2013. "Political Connections and Firm Value: Evidence from the Regression Discontinuity Design of Close Gubernatorial Elections," Working Papers hal-03460972, HAL.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/65rged1j6o9gl9jvp8a09o3eue is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n0dcia0po is not listed on IDEAS
    12. David Schoenherr, 2019. "Political Connections and Allocative Distortions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 543-586, April.
    13. Su, Zhong-qin & Fung, Hung-Gay & Huang, Deng-shi & Shen, Chung-Hua, 2014. "Cash dividends, expropriation, and political connections: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 260-272.
    14. Zhong-qin Su & Hung-Gay Fung, 2013. "Political Connections and Firm Performance in Chinese Companies," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 283-317, August.
    15. Banerji, Sanjay & Duygun, Meryem & Shaban, Mohamed, 2018. "Political connections, bailout in financial markets and firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 388-401.
    16. Quoc-Anh Do & Yen-Teik Lee & Bang Dang Nguyen, 2013. "Political Connections and Firm Value: Evidence from the Regression Discontinuity Design of Close Gubernatorial Elections," Working Papers hal-03460972, HAL.
    17. Yeh, Yin-Hua & Shu, Pei-Gi & Chiu, Shean-Bii, 2013. "Political connections, corporate governance and preferential bank loans," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1079-1101.
    18. Brown, Jeffrey R. & Huang, Jiekun, 2020. "All the president's friends: Political access and firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 415-431.
    19. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n0dcia0po is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Luechinger, Simon & Moser, Christoph, 2014. "The value of the revolving door: Political appointees and the stock market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 93-107.
    21. Elmar A. Janssen, 2014. "Do Election Results Affect the Value of Politically Connected Firms? - The Effect of the Schroeder-Merkel Change of Government on German Prime Standard Firms," Working Papers Dissertations 05, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    22. Omer Unsal & M. Kabir Hassan & William J. Hippler, 2016. "Lobbying in Finance Industry: Evidence from US Banking System," NFI Working Papers 2017-WP-03, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    23. Anders C. Johansson, 2015. "On the challenge to competitive authoritarianism and political patronage in Malaysia," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 29(2), pages 47-67, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Portfolio choice; Politics of financial markets; Government contracts; Politicians–firms relation; Investment by politicians;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:111:y:2014:i:1:p:86-110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.