Political Influence and the Renegotiation of Government Contracts

Author(s):  
Jonathan Brogaard ◽  
Matthew Denes ◽  
Ran Duchin

Abstract This paper provides novel evidence that corporate political influence operates through renegotiations of existing government contracts. Using detailed data on contractual terms and renegotiations around sudden deaths and resignations of local politicians, the estimates show that politically connected firms initially bid low and successfully renegotiate contract amounts, deadlines, and incentives. The effects hold across different industries and contract types, enhance firm value, and persist around the exogenous increase in contract supply due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Overall, this paper establishes an unexplored link between political influence, ex post renegotiations, and ex ante bidding of government contracts.

Author(s):  
Eitan Goldman ◽  
Wenyu Wang

Abstract Do informed shareholders who can influence corporate decisions improve governance? We demonstrate this may not be generally true in a model of takeovers. The model suggests that a shareholder’s ability to collect information and trade ex post may cause him, ex ante, to support pursuing value-destroying takeovers or oppose value-enhancing takeovers. Surprisingly, we find conditions under which giving the active shareholder greater influence weakens governance and reduces firm value, even if such influence power can be used to reject bad takeovers ex post. Our model sheds light on the limitations of relying on informed, active shareholders to improve governance.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Camous ◽  
Russell Cooper

Abstract This paper studies the determination of income taxes in a dynamic setting with human capital accumulation. The goal is to understand the factors that support an outcome without complete redistribution, given a majority of relatively poor agents and the inability to commit to future taxes. All agents agree ex ante that limiting tax and transfers is beneficial but a majority favors large redistribution, ex post, at the time of the vote. In a political influence game, group activism limits the support for expropriatory taxation and preserves incentives. In some cases, the outcome corresponds to the optimal allocation under commitment.


CFA Digest ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Ann C. Logue
Keyword(s):  
Ex Post ◽  

1993 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-138
Author(s):  
Pierre Malgrange ◽  
Silvia Mira d'Ercole
Keyword(s):  
Ex Post ◽  

Author(s):  
Richard Adelstein

This chapter elaborates the operation of criminal liability by closely considering efficient crimes and the law’s stance toward them, shows how its commitment to proportional punishment prevents the probability scaling that systemically efficient allocation requires, and discusses the procedures that determine the actual liability prices imposed on offenders. Efficient crimes are effectively encouraged by proportional punishment, and their nature and implications are examined. But proportional punishment precludes probability scaling, and induces far more than the systemically efficient number of crimes. Liability prices that match the specific costs imposed by the offender at bar are sought through a two-stage procedure of legislative determination of punishment ranges ex ante and judicial determination of exact prices ex post, which creates a dilemma: whether to price crimes accurately in the past or deter them accurately in the future. An illustrative Supreme Court case bringing all these themes together is discussed in conclusion.


Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin Grislain ◽  
Jeremy Bourgoin ◽  
Ward Anseeuw ◽  
Perrine Burnod ◽  
Eva Hershaw ◽  
...  

In recent decades, mechanisms for observation and information production have proliferated in an attempt to meet the growing needs of stakeholders to access dynamic data for the purposes of informed decision-making. In the land sector, a growing number of land observatories are producing data and ensuring its transparency. We hypothesize that these structures are being developed in response to the need for information and knowledge, a need that is being driven by the scale and diversity of land issues. Based on the results of a study conducted on land observatories in Africa, this paper presents existing and past land observatories on the continent and proposes to assess their diversity through an analysis of core dimensions identified in the literature. The analytical framework was implemented through i) an analysis of existing literature on land observatories, ii) detailed assessments of land observatories based on semi-open interviews conducted via video conferencing, iii) fieldwork and visits to several observatories, and iv) participant observation through direct engagement and work at land observatories. We emphasize that the analytical framework presented here can be used as a tool by land observatories to undertake ex-post self-evaluations that take the observatory’s trajectory into account, or in the case of proposed new land observatories, to undertake ex-ante analyses and design the pathway towards the intended observatory.


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