IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinin/v52y2022ics1042957322000353.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political influence and banks: Evidence from mortgage lending

Author

Listed:
  • Chu, Yongqiang
  • Zhang, Tim

Abstract

We show that banks expand mortgage lending in the home states of Senate Banking Committee chairs, and the effect is more pronounced in counties where the incumbent senator faces a competitive re-election race. Banks strategically target politically active borrowers. Consequently, banks’ profitability increases after favoring the incumbent politicians’ constituents, but they suffer a deterioration in mortgage asset quality in the long run. Our findings imply that political power could distort private capital allocation beyond conventional political contribution channels.

Suggested Citation

  • Chu, Yongqiang & Zhang, Tim, 2022. "Political influence and banks: Evidence from mortgage lending," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinin:v:52:y:2022:i:c:s1042957322000353
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfi.2022.100982
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042957322000353
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfi.2022.100982?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. Stephen Ansolabehere & John M. de Figueiredo & James M. Snyder Jr, 2003. "Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 105-130, Winter.
    2. Jin, Li & Myers, Stewart C., 2006. "R2 around the world: New theory and new tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 257-292, February.
    3. Jing Cynthia Wu & Fan Dora Xia, 2016. "Measuring the Macroeconomic Impact of Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 253-291, March.
    4. Bryan Kelly & Hao Jiang, 2014. "Editor's Choice Tail Risk and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(10), pages 2841-2871.
    5. Erik P. Gilje & Elena Loutskina & Philip E. Strahan, 2016. "Exporting Liquidity: Branch Banking and Financial Integration," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1159-1184, June.
    6. Giovanni Favara & Jean Imbs, 2015. "Credit Supply and the Price of Housing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 958-992, March.
    7. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Matilde Bombardini & Raymond Fisman & Francesco Trebbi, 2020. "Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(7), pages 2065-2102, July.
    9. 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.
    10. Mian, Atif & Sufi, Amir & Trebbi, Francesco, 2013. "The Political Economy of the Subprime Mortgage Credit Expansion," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 8(4), pages 373-408, October.
    11. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani, 2017. "Credit-Induced Boom and Bust," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(11), pages 3711-3758.
    12. Matthieu Chavaz & Andrew K Rose, 2019. "Political Borders and Bank Lending in Post-Crisis America," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(5), pages 935-959.
    13. Gabriel Jiménez & Steven Ongena & José-Luis Peydró & Jesús Saurina, 2017. "Macroprudential Policy, Countercyclical Bank Capital Buffers, and Credit Supply: Evidence from the Spanish Dynamic Provisioning Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 2126-2177.
    14. Deniz Igan & Prachi Mishra & Thierry Tressel, 2012. "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 195-230.
    15. Chaney, Paul K. & Faccio, Mara & Parsley, David, 2011. "The quality of accounting information in politically connected firms," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 58-76, February.
    16. Masazumi Hattori & Andreas Schrimpf & Vladyslav Sushko, 2016. "The Response of Tail Risk Perceptions to Unconventional Monetary Policy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 111-136, April.
    17. Lauren Cohen & Joshua Coval & Christopher Malloy, 2011. "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1015-1060.
    18. Cortes, Gustavo S. & Gao, George P. & Silva, Felipe B.G. & Song, Zhaogang, 2022. "Unconventional monetary policy and disaster risk: Evidence from the subprime and COVID–19 crises," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    19. Mara Faccio & Hung-Chia Hsu, 2017. "Politically Connected Private Equity and Employment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(2), pages 539-574, April.
    20. Duchin, Ran & Sosyura, Denis, 2012. "The politics of government investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 24-48.
    21. Jean-Edouard Colliard, 2020. "Optimal Supervisory Architecture and Financial Integration in a Banking Union [Is the international convergence of capital adequacy regulation desirable?]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 24(1), pages 129-161.
    22. Mara Faccio, 2006. "Politically Connected Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 369-386, March.
    23. Charles W. Calomiris, 2009. "Banking Crises and the Rules of the Game," Working Papers 2009/14, Czech National Bank.
    24. Peltzman, Sam, 1976. "Toward a More General Theory of Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 211-240, August.
    25. Lei Ding & Roberto G. Quercia & Carolina K. Reid & Alan M. White, 2012. "The Impact of Federal Preemption of State Antipredatory Lending Laws on the Foreclosure Crisis," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 367-387, March.
    26. 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.
    27. 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.
    28. Bartlett, Robert & Morse, Adair & Stanton, Richard & Wallace, Nancy, 2022. "Consumer-lending discrimination in the FinTech Era," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 30-56.
    29. Anne-Laure Delatte & Adrien Matray & Noémie Pinardon-Touati, 2020. "Private Credit Under Political Influence: Evidence from France," Working Papers 2020-56, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    30. Beatty, Anne & Liao, Scott, 2014. "Financial accounting in the banking industry: A review of the empirical literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 339-383.
    31. Jonathan Brogaard & Matthew Denes & Ran Duchin & David Denis, 2021. "Political Influence and the Renegotiation of Government Contracts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(6), pages 3095-3137.
    32. Alexander Rodnyansky & Olivier M. Darmouni, 2017. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Bank Lending Behavior," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(11), pages 3858-3887.
    33. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi & Francesco Trebbi, 2010. "The Political Economy of the US Mortgage Default Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 1967-1998, December.
    34. Thomas Stratmann, 2005. "Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 135-156, July.
    35. Sumit Agarwal & Gene Amromin & Itzhak Ben‐David & Serdar Dinc, 2018. "The Politics of Foreclosures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(6), pages 2677-2717, December.
    36. Alexander Borisov & Eitan Goldman & Nandini Gupta, 2016. "The Corporate Value of (Corrupt) Lobbying," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 1039-1071.
    37. Silva, Felipe Bastos Gurgel, 2021. "Fiscal Deficits, Bank Credit Risk, and Loan-Loss Provisions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(5), pages 1537-1589, August.
    38. Boyer, Pierre C. & Ponce, Jorge, 2012. "Regulatory capture and banking supervision reform," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 206-217.
    39. Pat Akey, 2015. "Valuing Changes in Political Networks: Evidence from Campaign Contributions to Close Congressional Elections," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(11), pages 3188-3223.
    40. Elena Loutskina & Philip E. Strahan, 2009. "Securitization and the Declining Impact of Bank Finance on Loan Supply: Evidence from Mortgage Originations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 861-889, April.
    41. Charles Calomiris, 2009. "Banking Crises and the Rules of the Game," NBER Working Papers 15403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    42. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Max Berre & Benjamin Le Pendeven, 2022. "Business-cycles and Cash-on-Market: Pre-money Startup Valuation in the Macroeconomic Environment," Papers 2211.16151, arXiv.org.
    2. Pauline Avril & Gregory Levieuge & Camelia Turcu, 2023. "Do bankers want their umbrellas back when it rains? Evidence from typhoons in China," Working Papers 2023.08, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    3. Max Berre & Benjamin Le Pendeven, 2022. "Business-cycles and Cash-on-Market: Pre-money Startup Valuation in the Macroeconomic Environment," Post-Print hal-03872889, HAL.
    4. Xudong An & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Ross Levine & Raluca Roman, 2023. "Social Capital and Mortgages," Working Papers 23-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    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. 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.
    2. Ilona Babenko & Viktar Fedaseyeu & Song Zhang, 2017. "Executives In Politics," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1762, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    3. Adelino, Manuel & Dinc, I. Serdar, 2014. "Corporate distress and lobbying: Evidence from the Stimulus Act," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 256-272.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Colonnelli, Emanuele & Lagaras, Spyridon & Ponticelli, Jacopo & Prem, Mounu & Tsoutsoura, Margarita, 2022. "Revealing corruption: Firm and worker level evidence from Brazil," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1097-1119.
    7. Papadimitri, Panagiota & Pasiouras, Fotios & Pescetto, Gioia & Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2021. "Does political influence distort banking regulation? Evidence from the US," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    8. Ms. Deniz O Igan & Thomas Lambert, 2019. "Bank Lobbying: Regulatory Capture and Beyond," IMF Working Papers 2019/171, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Shen, Chung-Hua & Bui, Dien Giau & Lin, Chih-Yung, 2017. "Do political factors affect stock returns during presidential elections?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 180-198.
    10. Şenay Ağca & Deniz Igan, 2023. "The Lion’s Share: Evidence from Federal Contracts on the Value of Political Connections," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(3), pages 609-638.
    11. Cao, Xiaping & Wang, Yuchen & Zhou, Sili, 2018. "Anti-corruption campaigns and corporate information release in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 186-203.
    12. Child, Travers Barclay & Massoud, Nadia & Schabus, Mario & Zhou, Yifan, 2021. "Surprise election for Trump connections," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 676-697.
    13. Akey, Pat & Heimer, Rawley Z. & Lewellen, Stefan, 2021. "Politicizing consumer credit," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(2), pages 627-655.
    14. Deniz Igan & Prachi Mishra & Thierry Tressel, 2012. "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 195-230.
    15. Anne-Laure Delatte & Adrien Matray & Noémie Pinardon-Touati, 2020. "Private Credit Under Political Influence: Evidence from France," Working Papers 2020-56, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    16. Michelson, Noam, 2023. "The revolving door of former civil servants and firm value: A comprehensive approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    17. Wagner, Wolf & Lambert, Thomas & Zhang, Eden Quxian, 2020. "Banks, Political Capital, and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 15612, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Colin P. Green & Swarnodeep Homroy, 2022. "Incorporated in Westminster: Channels and Returns to Political Connection in the United Kingdom," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(354), pages 377-408, April.
    19. Croci, Ettore & Pantzalis, Christos & Park, Jung Chul & Petmezas, Dimitris, 2017. "The role of corporate political strategies in M&As," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 260-287.
    20. Ahmed Tahoun & Florin P. Vasvari, 2016. "Political Lending," Working Papers Series 47, Institute for New Economic Thinking.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political influence; Mortgage lending; Senate banking committee; HMDA;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - 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:jfinin:v:52:y:2022:i:c:s1042957322000353. 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/622875 .

    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.