scholarly journals The partisan ties of lobbying firms

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316801987703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Furnas ◽  
Michael T. Heaney ◽  
Timothy M. LaPira
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Financial Benefits ◽  
Partisan Theory ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Financial Losses

This article examines lobbying firms as intermediaries between organized interests and legislators in the United States. It states a partisan theory of legislative subsidy in which lobbying firms are institutions with relatively stable partisan identities. Firms generate greater revenues when their clients believe that firms’ partisan ties are valued highly by members of Congress. It hypothesizes that firms that have partisan ties to the majority party receive greater revenues than do firms that do not have such ties, as well as that partisan ties with the House majority party lead to greater financial returns than do partisan ties to the Senate majority party. These hypotheses are tested using data available under the Lobbying Disclosure Act from 2008 to 2016. Panel regression analysis indicates that firms receive financial benefits when they have partisan ties with the majority party in the House but not necessarily with the Senate majority party, while controlling for firm-level covariates (number of clients, diversity, and organizational characteristics). A difference-in-differences analysis establishes that Democratically aligned lobbying firms experienced financial losses when the Republican Party reclaimed the House in 2011, but there were no significant differences between Republican and Democratic firms when the Republicans reclaimed the Senate in 2015.

Do Country-level Creditor Protections Affect Firm-level Debt Structure Concentration?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kose John ◽  
Mahsa S Kaviani ◽  
Lawrence Kryzanowski ◽  
Hosein Maleki
Keyword(s):  
Debt Structure ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Creditor Rights ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Bankruptcy Costs ◽  
Cash Flow Volatility ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Alternative Settings

Abstract We study the effects of country-level creditor protections on the firm-level choice of debt structure concentration. Using data from 46 countries, we show that firms form more concentrated debt structures in countries with stronger creditor protection. We propose a trade-off framework of optimal debt structure and show that in strong creditor rights regimes, the benefit of forming concentrated structures outweighs its cost. Because strong creditor protections increase liquidation bias, firms choose concentrated debt structures to improve the probability of successful distressed debt renegotiations. Firms with ex-ante higher bankruptcy costs, including those with higher intangibility, cash flow volatility, R&D expenses, and leverage exhibit stronger effects. Firms with restricted access to capital are also affected more. A difference-in-differences analysis of firms’ debt structure responses to creditor rights reforms confirms the cross-country results. Our findings are robust to alternative settings and a battery of robustness checks.

scholarly journals Straying from the Flock? A Look at How Americans’ Gender and Religious Identities Cross-Pressure Partisanship

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin C. Cassese
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
And Gender ◽  
White Evangelicals ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Social Sorting

White evangelicals–both men and women–are a mainstay of the Republican Party. What accounts for their ongoing loyalty, particularly when Republican candidates and leaders fail to embody closely held moral standards around sexual monogamy and propriety, as Donald Trump did in 2016? To answer this question, I draw on research about social sorting and polarization, as well as gender and religion gaps in public opinion, to theorize about the nature of the cross-pressures partisans may experience as a result of the religious and gender identifications they hold. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, I evaluate whether cross-cutting identities have a moderating effect on partisans’ thinking about gender issues, their evaluations of the presidential candidates, and their relationship to the parties. I find only modest evidence that gender and evangelical identification impact political thinking among white Republicans, including their reactions to the Access Hollywood tape. Other groups, however, experienced more significant cross-pressures in 2016. Both evangelical Democrats and secular Republicans reported less polarized affective reactions to the presidential candidates and the parties. The results highlight the contingent role that gender and religious identities play in the United States’ highly polarized political climate.

Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 1109-1127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Caldeira ◽  
John R. Wright
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Amicus Curiae ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Selection Of

Participation as amicus curiae has long been an important tactic of organized interests in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. We analyze amicus curiae briefs filed before the decision on certiorari and assess their impact on the Court's selection of a plenary docket. We hypothesize that one or more briefs advocating or opposing certiorari increase the likelihood of its being granted. We test this hypothesis using data from the United States Reports and Briefs and Records of the United States Supreme Court for the 1982 term. The statistical analysis demonstrates that the presence of amicus curiae briefs filed prior to the decision on certiorari significantly and positively increases the chances of the justices' binding of a case over for full treatment—even after we take into account the full array of variables other scholars have hypothesized or shown to be substantial influences on the decision to grant or deny.

scholarly journals Why Local Party Leaders Don't Support Nominating Centrists

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Broockman ◽  
Nicholas Carnes ◽  
Melody Crowder-Meyer ◽  
Christopher Skovron
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Local Party ◽  
Do So

AbstractWould giving party leaders more influence in primary elections in the United States decrease elite polarization? Some scholars have argued that political party leaders tend to support centrist candidates in the hopes of winning general elections. In contrast, the authors argue that many local party leaders – especially Republicans – may not believe that centrists perform better in elections and therefore may not support nominating them. They test this argument using data from an original survey of 1,118 county-level party leaders. In experiments, they find that local party leaders most prefer nominating candidates who are similar to typical co-partisans, not centrists. Moreover, given the choice between a more centrist and more extreme candidate, they strongly prefer extremists: Democrats do so by about 2 to 1 and Republicans by 10 to 1. Likewise, in open-ended questions, Democratic Party leaders are twice as likely to say they look for extreme candidates relative to centrists; Republican Party leaders are five times as likely. Potentially driving these partisan differences, Republican leaders are especially likely to believe that extremists can win general elections and overestimate the electorate's conservatism by double digits.

Inventory in Times of War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andres F. Jola-Sanchez ◽  
Juan Camilo Serpa
Keyword(s):  
Operations Management ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Related Risk ◽  
Physical Assets ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Conflict Intensity ◽  
Identification Strategy

Using data from 38,916 businesses in war-torn Colombia and from 5,138 attacks by the two rebel groups, FARC and ELN, we study how firms manage inventory during civil war. We obtain exogenous variation in the conflict intensity via a difference-in-differences model, which hinges on the peace process between Colombia’s government and FARC. Relying on this identification strategy, we hypothesize and show that war causes two effects on firm-level inventories. First, it leads firms to replace physical assets (inventory) with fungible assets (cash), causing them to operate with an oversecured financial buffer, but a fragile operational buffer. Second, this inventory reduction occurs mostly in unprocessed inventories (finished-goods inventories are insensitive to violence), meaning that, although war-torn businesses are equipped to fulfill planned orders, they become inflexible at handling uncertain future demand. We then show that the magnitude of these effects is highly contingent on the firm’s position in the supply chain, its proximity to distribution markets, and the type of attacks it is subject to. We then propose policies to address war-related risk in supply chains. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

scholarly journals A Unified Theory of Firm Selection and Growth *

2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costas Arkolakis
Keyword(s):  
Small Firms ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The United States ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Trade Model ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Firm Selection

Abstract This article develops an analytical framework to study firm and exporter growth and provides a dynamic foundation for a standard general equilibrium trade model. Firm-level growth is the result of idiosyncratic productivity improvements with a continuous arrival of new potential producers. A firm enters a market if it is profitable to incur the marginal cost to reach the first consumer and pays an increasing marketing cost to reach additional consumers. I calibrate the model using data on the cross section of firm sales and bilateral trade, as well as the rate of incumbent firm exit. The calibrated model predicts that a firm’s growth is inversely related to its initial size, and that the distribution of growth rates of small firms is heavily skewed to the right. These predictions are confirmed by looking at the growth of sales of U.S. firms and Brazilian exporters to the United States. I use this model to study the impact of cross-firm reallocations on economic activity and measured productivity.

Migration and the Internet

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas John Cooke ◽  
Ian Shuttleworth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Using Data ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Dynamics Models

It is widely presumed that information and communication technologies, or ICTs, enable migration in several ways; primarily by reducing the costs of migration. However, a reconsideration of the relationship between ICTs and migration suggests that ICTs may just as well hinder migration; primarily by reducing the costs of not moving.  Using data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, models that control for sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity indicate a strong negative effect of ICT use on inter-state migration within the United States. These results help to explain the long-term decline in internal migration within the United States.

The New Economic Populism and the Future of Inequality in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.

The Hard Sell

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Scott
Keyword(s):  
Price Competition ◽  
New Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vacuum Cleaner ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Direct Sales ◽  
Cost Distribution ◽  
Household Cleaning ◽  
Time Savings ◽  
Cleaning Methods

The vacuum cleaner was an archetypal new economy product of the early twentieth century. It offered both major time savings and qualitative advantages over previous household cleaning methods—the brush, broom, and manual carpet sweeper—and was sold in a novel way (by household demonstration). The direct sales techniques pioneered by vacuum manufacturers in the United States were to have a profound impact on the way vacuums were sold in Britain, and globally. Yet by 1939 their household diffusion was relatively slow compared to refrigerators or washing machines. This chapter explores why the industry evolved a structure based on high prices, high cost distribution methods (door-to-door sales), and a strong emphasis on non-price competition, based on differentiation through features. It also shows how door-to-door selling eventually came to constitute both a key firm-level competitive advantage and a substantial industry-level constraint on product diffusion.

scholarly journals Who Really Benefits from Consumption Tax Cuts? Evidence from a Large VAT Reform in France

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Benzarti ◽  
Dorian Carloni
Keyword(s):  
Value Added ◽  
Consumption Tax ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Price Effects ◽  
Firm Level Data ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Firm Owners

This paper evaluates the incidence of a large cut in value-added taxes (VATs) for French sit-down restaurants in 2009. In contrast to previous studies, which only focus on the price effects of VAT reforms, we estimate the effects of the VAT cut on four groups: workers, firm owners, consumers, and suppliers of material goods. Using a difference-in-differences strategy on firm-level data, we find that: firm owners pocketed more than 55 percent of the VAT cut; consumers, sellers of material goods, and employees shared the remaining windfall with consumers benefiting the least; and the employment effects were limited. (JEL H22, H25, L83)

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document