Corporate Lobbying, CEO Political Ideology and Firm Performance (original) (raw)
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Political lobbying, insider trading, and CEO compensation
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Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns We develop a new and comprehensive database of firm-level contributions to U.S. political campaigns from 1979 to 2004. We construct variables that measure the extent of firm support for candidates. We find that these measures are positively and significantly correlated with the crosssection of future returns. The effect is strongest for firms that support a greater number of candidates which hold office in the same state that the firm is based. In addition, there are stronger effects for firms whose contributions are slanted toward House candidates and Democrats.
Corporate political strategies
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The paper offers a comprehensive and integrative review of the current literature on corporate political strategies sharing common boundaries with finance, accounting and corporate governance. While there appears to be a heightened interest among researchers in studying the value relevance of corporate political strategies [Chen et al. among others], interestingly, finance and corporate governance scholars have yet to embrace the research on political strategies as part of their mainstream research. Taking a micro perspective at the firm level, we review the major scholarly works in the economics, finance and management disciplines with respect to the firm attributes shaping the corporate decision to engage politically, modes of corporate political participation, and the value impact of corporate political activity. The overarching theme of the review article is to integrate diverse -political economy and management -paradigms of corporate political participation and rationalize the value relevance within the corporate finance and corporate governance perspective. The paper also presents focused preliminary evidence on the determinants and value impact of corporate lobbying strategies. For the sample of 5452 firm-year observations, the results indicate that while for large firms corporate lobbying may not be agency driven and may create value, for small firms, despite low shareholder rights associating with higher lobbying engagements, lobbying still relates positively to value added.
Journal of International Management, 2022
Prior research has found that corporate political activity (CPA) can both positively and negatively impact firm performance. Combining agency theory with the resource-based view, we examine the relationship between domestic lobbying (a key form of CPA) and firm performance by explicating the moderating effects of international and product diversification. We argue that expansion into international and product markets increases a firm's resources and reduces agency costs in domestic lobbying. Our results, based on a sample of 737 firms, show that lobbying is positively associated with performance for firms that are diversified in both international markets and along product-lines; whereas lobbying is counter-productive for purely domestic and undiversified firms. Our results contribute to the literature on the firm performance implications of corporate political activity by highlighting the roles of international and product diversification.
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We present evidence that individuals make political contributions strategically by targeting politicians with power to affect their economic well-being. Individuals in Congressional districts with greater industry clustering choose to support politicians with jurisdiction over the industry. Importantly, individual political contributions are associated with improvements in operating performance of firms in industry clusters. The relation between contributions and firm performance is strongest for poorly performing firms, firms closer to financial distress, and for contributions in close elections. The results imply that individual political contributions are valuable to firms, especially during bad economic times.
Corporate Political Activity: An Integrated Model
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This paper reviews the current state of research in the area of corporate political activity to build an integrated model. This model segregates the related but scattered corporate political activity constructs in literature into enablers, motivators, moderators, choices, and outcomes of corporate political activity. This model can be help in reconciling contradictory results in literature. For instance, several studies have found evidence positive, neutral, and negative effect of CPA on performance. This model suggests that CPA-performance relationship is enabled and moderated by several factors, and controlling them may yield a better picture of CPA effect on performance. We further suggest gaps in current literature and give suggestions for future research in this area.