Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

Lauren  Cohen; Joshua  Coval; Christopher J. Malloy

Article | Journal of Political Economy | December 2011

Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

by Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher J. Malloy

Abstract

This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In doing so, we show that fiscal spending shocks appear to significantly dampen corporate sector investment and employment activity. This retrenchment follows both Senate and House committee chair changes, occurs in large and small firms and within large and small states, and is most pronounced among geographically concentrated firms. The effects are economically meaningful and the mechanism-entirely distinct from the more traditional interest rate and tax channels-suggests new considerations in assessing the impact of government spending on private sector economic activity.

Keywords: Spending; Private Sector; Taxation; Innovation and Invention; Interest Rates; Business and Government Relations; Investment; Employment; Power and Influence;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Cohen, Lauren, Joshua Coval, and Christopher J. Malloy. "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?" Journal of Political Economy 119, no. 6 (December 2011): 1015–1060. (Click here for a response to Snyder and Welch, click here for the data, and click here for the code.)

Article | Journal of Finance | June 2020

Lazy Prices

Lauren Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy, Quoc Nguyen, Lauren Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy and Quoc Nguyen

We explore the implications of a subtle "default" choice that firms make in their regular reporting practices, namely that firms typically repeat what they most recently reported. Using the complete history of regular quarterly and annual filings by U.S. corporations from 1995 to 2014, we show that when firms make an active change in their reporting practices, this conveys an important signal about the firm. Changes to the language and construction of financial reports have strong implications for firms' future returns: a portfolio that shorts "changers" and buys "non-changers" earns up to 188 basis points per month (over 22% per year) in abnormal returns in the future. These reporting changes are concentrated in the management discussion (MD&A) section. Changes in language referring to the executive (CEO and CFO) team, or regarding litigation, are especially informative for future returns.

Keywords: information; default behavior; inertia; firms; annual reports; disclosure; Information; Business or Company Management; Behavior; Corporate Disclosure; Financial Reporting; United States;

Citation:

Cohen, Lauren, Christopher J. Malloy, and Quoc Nguyen. "Lazy Prices." Journal of Finance 75, no. 3 (June 2020): 1371–1415. (Winner of the First Prize, Chicago Quantitative Alliance Academic Paper Competition, 2016. Winner of the Jack Treynor Prize for superior work in the field of investment management and financial markets, sponsored by the Q-Group,The Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance, 2016. Winner of the Hillcrest Behavioral Finance Prize, 2016.) View Details

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Three years ago, Alvin Ang and his partner founded fidentiaX in Singapore, with the ambition to create the world’s first marketplace for tradable insurance policies on blockchain. With a 26-page white paper, the start-up closed a successful fundraising round through an initial coin offering (ICO). Three years later, however, the company still had not completed the infrastructure for the insurance trading platform. Besides the rapidly dwindling funds, fidentiaX had to fight with a tardy development team, uncooperative incumbent insurers, and begrudging investors. The case provides an overview of the blockchain industry and insights into the secondary life insurance market. Through the case, students will assess the company’s business strategies and learn about typical challenges faced by technology start-ups.

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Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

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