IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bic/rpaper/3.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Political Connections Matter? Firm-Level Evidence from Latvia

Author

Listed:
  • Vyacheslav Dombrovsky

    (Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS) and Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga))

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of political connections on firm performance. It draws on the universe of all registered firms in Latvia to construct a unique dataset of firms connected to politicians in 1996 to 2005. This paper shows that the effects of connections to politicians vary depending on the type of connection. Using fixed effects framework, it finds that firms that acquire politicians as their shareholders or board members experience a drop in the sales by 40%, followed by an increase in sales by 75% in the following year. This finding suggests that politicians join the firms in distress and help with political favors. However, this paper finds no effect from changes in the strength of political connections caused by changes in the ruling coalition. It also finds that connection with ex-politicians has no effect on firm performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Vyacheslav Dombrovsky, 2008. "Do Political Connections Matter? Firm-Level Evidence from Latvia," SSE Riga/BICEPS Research Papers 3, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    • Handle: RePEc:bic:rpaper:3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://biceps.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/researchpaperno3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Irina Slinko & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Evgeny Yakovlev, 2005. "Laws for Sale: Evidence from Russia," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 7(1), pages 284-318.
    2. Douglass C. North & John Joseph Wallis & Barry R. Weingast, 2006. "A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History," NBER Working Papers 12795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Hellman, Joel S. & Jones, Geraint & Kaufmann, daniel, 2000. ""Seize the state, seize the day": state capture, corruption, and influence in transition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2444, The World Bank.
    4. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    5. 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.
    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. Md. Abdul Kaium Masud & Seong Mi Bae & Javier Manzanares & Jong Dae Kim, 2019. "Board Directors’ Expertise and Corporate Corruption Disclosure: The Moderating Role of Political Connections," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-22, August.
    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. Chakeel PRAYAGSING & Kheswar JANKEE, 2018. "Political connection and allocation of capital in the corporate sector in Mauritius. A game approach (theoretical relationship)," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(Special), pages 197-208.
    4. Chakeel PRAYAGSING & Kheswar JANKEE, 2018. "A direct measurement of corporate financial constraints of SMEs and large firms in Mauritius. A firm level survey analysis," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(Special), pages 175-196.
    5. Domadenik, Polona & Prašnikar, Janez & Svejnar, Jan, 2014. "Legal Corruption, Politically Connected Corporate Governance and Firm Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 8321, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Abubakr Saeed & Yacine Belghitar & Ephraim Clark, 2017. "Political connections and firm operational efficiencies: evidence from a developing country," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 191-224, January.
    7. Polona Domadenik & Janez Prašnikar & Jan Svejnar, 2016. "Political Connectedness, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(2), pages 411-428, December.

    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. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Straub, Stéphane & Flochel, Thomas, 2016. "Public Procurement and Rent-Seeking: The Case of Paraguay," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 395-407.
    2. 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.
    3. Yuxuan Li & Xin Miao & Dequan Zheng & Yanhong Tang, 2019. "Corporate Public Transparency on Financial Performance: The Moderating Role of Political Embeddedness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Chong, Alberto E. & Gradstein, Mark, 2007. "On the Determinants and Effects of Political Influence," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3347, Inter-American Development Bank.
    5. Zingales, Luigi & Faccio, Mara, 2017. "Political Determinants of Competition in the Mobile Telecommunication Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 11794, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Gul, Ferdinand A. & Munir, Sa'adiah & Zhang, Liang, 2016. "Ethnicity, politics and firm performance: Evidence from Malaysia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 115-129.
    7. Feng, Xunan & Johansson, Anders C. & Zhang, Tianyu, 2014. "Political participation and entrepreneurial initial public offerings in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 269-285.
    8. Maurizio Bussolo & Simon Commander & Stavros Poupakis, 2023. "Political connections and firms: network dimensions," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 256-280.
    9. Nys, Emmanuelle & Tarazi, Amine & Trinugroho, Irwan, 2015. "Political connections, bank deposits, and formal deposit insurance," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 83-104.
    10. 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.
    11. R. Warren Anderson, 2017. "Marijuana Prohibition and Rent Seeking," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 33-46, April.
    12. Magnoli Bocchi, Alessandro, 2008. "Rising growth, declining investment : the puzzle of the Philippines," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4472, The World Bank.
    13. Danglun Luo & Naqiong Tong & Guoman She, 2017. "City‐level political uncertainty and city‐level IPO activities," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1447-1480, December.
    14. Emmanuelle Nys & Amine Tarazi & Irwan Trinugroho, 2013. "Political Connections, Bank Deposits, and Formal Deposit Insurance: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Working Papers hal-00916513, HAL.
    15. Li, Guoping & Zhou, Hong, 2015. "Political connections and access to IPO markets in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 76-93.
    16. Driffield, Nigel L. & Mickiewicz, Tomasz & Temouri, Yama, 2013. "Institutional reforms, productivity and profitability: From rents to competition?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 583-600.
    17. Fang, Hanming & Gu, Quanlin & Zhou, Li-An, 2019. "The gradients of power: Evidence from the Chinese housing market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 32-52.
    18. Faccio, Mara & Zingales, Luigi, 2017. "Political Determinants of Competition in the Mobile Telecommunication Industry," Working Papers 259, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    19. Li, Yunhe & Tina Zhang, Xiaotian, 2023. "Rent-seeking in bank credit and firm R&D innovation: The role of industrial agglomeration," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    20. Lehne, Jonathan & Shapiro, Jacob N. & Vanden Eynde, Oliver, 2018. "Building connections: Political corruption and road construction in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 62-78.

    More about this item

    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:bic:rpaper:3. 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: Anna Zasova (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.biceps.org .

    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.