IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/uclaol/297.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Jeffords Effect

Author

Listed:
  • Seema Jayachandran

Abstract

In May 2001, Senator James Jeffords left the Republican Party and tipped control of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats. This paper uses the surprise event to demonstrate what I term the "Jeffords effect": changes in the political landscape have large effects on the market value of firms. I use a firm's soft-money donations to the national parties as the measure of how the firm aligns itself politically. In this event study, a firm lost .8 percent of market capitalization the week of Jeffords's switch for every $250,000 it gave to the Republicans in the previous election cycle. On the basis of the point estimates, the stock price gain associated with Democratic donations is smaller than the loss associated with Republican donations, but the estimates are consistent with the effects being equal and opposite. The results withstand several robustness checks, and the effects appear to persist over time.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Seema Jayachandran, 2004. "The Jeffords Effect," UCLA Economics Online Papers 297, UCLA Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:cla:uclaol:297
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.ucla.edu/people/papers/Jayachandran/Jayachandran297.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C. Herron & James Lavin & Donald Cram & Jay Silver, 1999. "Measurement of Political Effects in the United States Economy: A Study of the 1992 Presidential Election," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 51-81, March.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Stratmann, Thomas, 2002. "Can Special Interests Buy Congressional Votes? Evidence from Financial Services Legislation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(2), pages 345-373, October.
    5. 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.
    6. Hall, Richard L. & Wayman, Frank W., 1990. "Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 797-820, September.
    7. Bronars, Stephen G & Lott, John R, Jr, 1997. "Do Campaign Donations Alter How a Politician Votes? Or, Do Donors Support Candidates Who Value the Same Things That They Do?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 317-350, October.
    8. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    9. David P. Baron, 1989. "Service-Induced Campaign Contributions and the Electoral Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, 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. Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2013. "Corporate campaign contributions and abnormal stock returns after presidential elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 285-307, July.
    2. Thomas Stratmann, 2005. "Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 135-156, July.
    3. Ovtchinnikov, Alexei V. & Pantaleoni, Eva, 2012. "Individual political contributions and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 367-392.
    4. Balles, Patrick & Matter, Ulrich & Stutzer, Alois, 2018. "Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention," Economics Working Paper Series 1813, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    5. 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.
    6. Ansolabehere, Stephen & De Figueiredo, John M. & Snyder, James M., 2003. "Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?"," Working papers 4272-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    7. Ulrich Matter & Michaela Slotwinski, 2016. "Precise Control over Legislative Vote Outcomes: A Forensic Approach to Political Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 6007, CESifo.
    8. 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.
    9. J. Lawrence Broz, 2008. "Congressional voting on funding the international financial institutions," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 351-374, December.
    10. Michael Dorsch, 2013. "Bailout for sale? The vote to save Wall Street," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 211-228, June.
    11. Matsusaka, John G., 2018. "Special Interest Influence under Direct versus Representative Democracy," Working Papers 278, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    12. Orkun Saka & Yuemei Ji & Paul De Grauwe, 2021. "Financial Policymaking after Crises: Public vs. Private Interests," CESifo Working Paper Series 9131, CESifo.
    13. Saka, Orkun & Ji, Yuemei & De Grauwe, Paul, 2021. "Financial policymaking after crises : Public vs. private interests," BOFIT Discussion Papers 10/2021, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    14. Michael J. Barber & Brandice Canes‐Wrone & Sharece Thrower, 2017. "Ideologically Sophisticated Donors: Which Candidates Do Individual Contributors Finance?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(2), pages 271-288, April.
    15. Ulrich Matter & Paolo Roberti & Michaela Slotwinski, 2019. "Vote Buying in the US Congress," CESifo Working Paper Series 7841, CESifo.
    16. Ramirez Carlos D., 2011. "The $700 Billion Bailout: A Public-Choice Interpretation," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 291-318, November.
    17. Artés, Joaquín & Richter, Brian Kelleher & Timmons, Jeffrey F., 2019. "The Value of Political Geography: Evidence from the Redistricting of Firms," Working Papers 291, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    18. Saka, Orkun & Ji, Yuemei & De Grauwe, Paul, 2020. "Financial policymaking after crises: public vs. private interests," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118861, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Alexander Fink, 2017. "Donations to Political Parties: Investing Corporations and Consuming Individuals?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 220-255, May.
    20. Saka, Orkun & Ji, Yuemei & De Grauwe, Paul, 2021. "Financial policymaking after crises: Public vs. private interests," BOFIT Discussion Papers 10/2021, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).

    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:cla:uclaol:297. 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: David K. Levine (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.ucla.edu/ .

    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.