Suchergebnisse

While financial liberalization has in general favorable effects, reforms in countries with poor regulation is often followed by financial crises. We explain this variation as the outcome of lobbying interests capturing the reform process. Even after liberalization, market investors must rely on enforcement of investor protection, which may be structured so as to block funding for new entrants, or limit their access to refinance after a shock. This forces inefficient default and exit by more leveraged entrepreneurs, protecting more established producers. As a result, lobbying may deliberately worsen financial fragility. After large external shocks, borrowers from the political elite in very corrupt countries may successfully lobby for weak enforcement, and retain control of collateral. We provide evidence that industry exit rates and profit margins after banking crises are higher in the most corrupt countries.

This paper provides empirical evidence that campaign contributions arestrongly associated with market expectations of future firm-specific political favors,including preferential access to external financing. Using a novel dataset, we find thatfirms in Brazil providing contributions in the 1998 campaign to (elected) federal deputiesexperienced higher stock returns following the election, even after controlling forindustry-specific effects and firm-specific controls. This suggests that federal deputieswere expected to shape policy to benefit these firms in particular. Consistent with suchpolitical favors, we find that these firms relative to a control group substantially increasedtheir financial leverage in the four years following election, suggesting that contributionsgained firms preferential access to finance.