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Political connections and preferential access to finance: The role of campaign contributions

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Author Info
Claessens, Stijn
Feijen, Erik
Laeven, Luc

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Abstract

Using novel indicators of political connections constructed from campaign contribution data, we show that Brazilian firms that provided contributions to (elected) federal deputies experienced higher stock returns than firms that did not around the 1998 and 2002 elections. This suggests that contributions help shape policy on a firm-specific basis. Using a firm fixed effects framework to mitigate the risk that unobserved firm characteristics distort the results, we find that contributing firms substantially increased their bank financing relative to a control group after each election, indicating that access to bank finance is an important channel through which political connections operate. We estimate the economic costs of this rent seeking over the two election cycles to be at least 0.2% of gross domestic product per annum.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Financial Economics.

Volume (Year): 88 (2008)
Issue (Month): 3 (June)
Pages: 554-580
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Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:88:y:2008:i:3:p:554-580

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "The Great Reversals: The Politics of Financial Development in the 20th Century," NBER Working Papers 8178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1994. "What Do We Know About Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," NBER Working Papers 4875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Randall Morck & Daniel Wolfenzon & Bernard Yeung, 2004. "Corporate Governance, Economic Entrenchment and Growth," NBER Working Papers 10692, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. 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 127-36, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Francis , Bill B & Hasan, Iftekhar & Sun, Xian, 2009. "Political connections and the process of going public: evidence from China," Research Discussion Papers 7/2009, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Federico Cingano & Paolo Pinotti, 2009. "Politicians at work. The private returns and social costs of political connections," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 709, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  3. Zwart, G.J. de & Dijk, D.J.C. van, 2008. "The Inefficient Use of Macroeconomic Information in Analysts' Earnings Forecasts in Emerging Markets," Research Paper ERS-2008-007-F&A Revision, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni. [Downloadable!]
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