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Betting on Hitler - The Value of Political Connections in Nazi Germany

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Author Info
Ferguson, Thomas
Voth, Hans-Joachim

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Abstract

We examine the effect of close ties with the NSDAP on the stock price of listed firms in 1932-33. We consider not only links between the National Socialists and executives, as was common in earlier work, but also with supervisory board members – whose importance is hard to overestimate in the case of German industry. One implication of our work is that, weighted by stock market capitalization in 1932, more than half of listed firms on the Berlin stock exchange had substantive links with the NSDAP. Crucially, stock market investors recognized the value of these links, sending the share prices of connected firms up as the new regime became firmly established. While the market as a whole rose after Hitler’s accession to power, firms with board members known to favour the party (or backing it financially) outperformed the market by 5-10% between January and May 1933. We show that this finding is robust to a range of additional control variables and alternative estimation techniques.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5021.

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Date of creation: Apr 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5021

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Related research
Keywords: market efficiency; Nazi party; political connections; stock market returns;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies
G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Mara Faccio, 2006. "Politically Connected Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 369-386, March. [Downloadable!]
  2. Malcolm Baker & Jeremy C. Stein & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2002. "When Does the Market Matter? Stock Prices and the Investment of Equity-Dependent Firms," NBER Working Papers 8750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. James W. Hardin & Raymond J. Carroll, 2003. "Measurement error, GLMs, and notational conventions," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(4), pages 329-341, December. [Downloadable!]
  4. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-83, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-63, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Roger Koenker & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Quantile Regression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 143-156, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Johnson, Simon & Mitton, Todd, 2003. "Cronyism and capital controls: evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 351-382, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Francis , Bill B & Hasan, Iftekhar & Sun, Xian, 2009. "Political connections and the process of going public: evidence from China," Research Discussion Papers 7/2009, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Federico Cingano & Paolo Pinotti, 2009. "Politicians at work. The private returns and social costs of political connections," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 709, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  3. Jay Pil Choi & Marcel Thum, 2007. "The Economics of Politically Connected Firms," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  4. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Edward Miguel & Daniel Ortega & Francisco Rodriguez, 2009. "The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta," NBER Working Papers 14923, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Braggion, F., 2008. "Managers, Firms and (Secret) Social Networks: The Economics of Freemasonry," Discussion Paper 2008-36, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  6. Sumon Majumdar & Sharun Mukand, 2008. "The Leader as Catalyst – on Leadership and the Mechanics of Institutional Change," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Cheung, Yan-Leung & Rau, P. Raghavendra & Aris, Stouraitis, 2008. "The helping hand, the lazy hand, or the grabbing hand? Central vs. local government shareholders in publicly listed firms in China," CEI Working Paper Series 2008-11, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
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