IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v115y2025i10p3367-3414.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Politics at Work

Author

Listed:
  • Emanuele Colonnelli
  • Valdemar Pinho Neto
  • Edoardo Teso

Abstract

We study how individual political views shape firm behavior and labor market outcomes using new microdata from Brazil. We first show that business owners are considerably more likely to employ copartisan workers. This phenomenon is in part driven by the overlapping of political and social networks. Multiple tests—surveys, event studies, analyses of wage premia and promotions within the firm, and a field experiment—further highlight how business owners' political preferences directly influence firms' employment decisions. A channel of political discrimination appears more relevant than one of political quid pro quo between firms and politicians.

Suggested Citation

  • Emanuele Colonnelli & Valdemar Pinho Neto & Edoardo Teso, 2025. "Politics at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 115(10), pages 3367-3414, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:10:p:3367-3414
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20240151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20240151
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E220524V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23954
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23955
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20240151?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:10:p:3367-3414. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.