IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfr/banfra/735.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Real Effects of Checks and Balances: Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Anne Duquerroy

Abstract

This article explores the economic effects of checks and balances on corporate investment and employment. I use U.S. gubernatorial election results from 1978 to 2010 as a source of exogenous variation in whether the party controls both the executive and the legislative branch (unified government) or not (divided government), which determines its ability to implement its political agenda. I find that both public and private firms respond to the political cycle by reducing investment and hiring when government becomes unified. Investment drops by three to five percent in the year following an election resulting in unified government, while stock returns volatility is three percent higher. The findings support the hypothesis that moving from divided to unified government raises policy uncertainty by increasing the probability of future policy changes. Consistent with a real option channel, the effect is stronger for capital intensive firms with lower asset redeployability.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne Duquerroy, 2019. "The Real Effects of Checks and Balances: Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment," Working papers 735, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/wp735.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    2. Matthew Serfling, 2016. "Firing Costs and Capital Structure Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(5), pages 2239-2286, October.
    3. SHOR, BORIS & McCARTY, NOLAN, 2011. "The Ideological Mapping of American Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 530-551, August.
    4. Pedro Santa‐Clara & Rossen Valkanov, 2003. "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1841-1872, October.
    5. Tsebelis, George, 1995. "Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 289-325, July.
    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. Yusuf Adeneye & Fathyah Hashim & Yusuf Babatunde Rahman & Normaizatul Akma Saidi, 2023. "COVID-19 Dynamics and Financing of Cash Flow Shortages: Evidence from Firm-Level Survey," Capital Markets Review, Malaysian Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 23-53.
    2. Todd Mitton, 2022. "Methodological Variation in Empirical Corporate Finance," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 527-575.
    3. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    4. Niklas Potrafke, 2017. "Government Ideology and Economic Policy-Making in the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 6444, CESifo.
    5. Jinsuk Yang & Qing Hao & Mahmut Yaşar, 2023. "Institutional investors and cross‐border mergers and acquisitions: The 2000–2018 period," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 553-583, September.
    6. Fabbri, Daniela & Menichini, Anna Maria C., 2016. "The commitment problem of secured lending," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 561-584.
    7. Haizhou Huang & Chenggang Xu, 1999. "Financial Institutions, Financial Contagion, and Financial Crises," CID Working Papers 21, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    8. Sobel, Andrew C., 2002. "State institutions, risk, and lending in global capital markets," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 725-752, December.
    9. Merrill, Craig B. & Nadauld, Taylor D. & Stulz, Rene M. & Sherlund, Shane, 2012. "Did Capital Requirements and Fair Value Accounting Spark Fire Sales in Distressed Mortgage-Backed Securities?," Working Papers 13-01, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    10. Kari Irwin Otteburn, 2023. "All in favour? Indian business interests and the India-EU FTA," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 311-329, September.
    11. Stieglitz, Moritz & Setzer, Ralph, 2022. "Firm-level employment, labour market reforms, and bank distress," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    12. Gareis, Johannes & Mayer, Eric, 2020. "Financial shocks and the relative dynamics of tangible and intangible investment: Evidence from the euro area," Discussion Papers 39/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    13. Stijn Claesens & Simeon Djankov & Ashoka Mody, 2001. "Resolution of Financial Distress : An International Perspective on the Design of Bankruptcy Laws," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14029, December.
    14. Nicole Boyson & Jean Helwege & Jan Jindra, 2014. "Crises, Liquidity Shocks, and Fire Sales at Commercial Banks," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(4), pages 857-884, December.
    15. Lin, Tse-Chun & Liu, Jinyu & Ni, Xiaoran, 2022. "Foreign bank entry deregulation and stock market stability: Evidence from staggered regulatory changes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 185-207.
    16. Anna Harvey & Taylor Mattia, 2022. "Does money have a conservative bias? Estimating the causal impact of Citizens United on state legislative preferences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 417-441, June.
    17. Suman Banerjee & Thomas H. Noe, 2017. "Legal-System Arbitrage and Parent–Subsidiary Capital Structures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3809-3828, November.
    18. Benjamin Bennett & Isil Erel & Léa H. Stern & Zexi Wang, 2020. "Paid Leave Pays Off: The Effects of Paid Family Leave on Firm Performance," NBER Working Papers 27788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Greenwood, Robin & Landier, Augustin & Thesmar, David, 2015. "Vulnerable banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 471-485.
    20. Raghuram Rajan & Rodney Ramcharan, 2015. "The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1439-1477, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    : Investment; Checks and balances; Divided government; Gubernatorial elections; Political uncertainty.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E66 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General Outlook and Conditions
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bfr:banfra:735. 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: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.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.