IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v71y2022ics0176268021000653.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Politically connected firms and privileged access to credit: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Bussolo, Maurizio
  • de Nicola, Francesca
  • Panizza, Ugo
  • Varghese, Richard

Abstract

We use firm-level data from six Central and Eastern European economies to examine whether political connections ease financial constraints faced by firms. We show that politically connected firms are characterized by higher leverage, lower profitability, and lower productivity of capital than unconnected firms. However, we do not find any significant difference in investment rates between them. Politically connected firms, though less productive than unconnected firms, borrow more because they have easier access to credit. Our results are consistent with the idea that political connections distort capital allocation and may have welfare costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Bussolo, Maurizio & de Nicola, Francesca & Panizza, Ugo & Varghese, Richard, 2022. "Politically connected firms and privileged access to credit: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:71:y:2022:i:c:s0176268021000653
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268021000653
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102073?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ufuk Akcigit & Salomé Baslandze & Francesca Lotti, 2023. "Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 529-564, March.
    2. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Claessens, Stijn & Feijen, Erik & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "Political connections and preferential access to finance: The role of campaign contributions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 554-580, June.
    4. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    5. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Zheng (Michael) Song, 2015. "Grasp the Large, Let Go of the Small: The Transformation of the State Sector in China," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 295-366.
    6. Sapienza, Paola, 2004. "The effects of government ownership on bank lending," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 357-384, May.
    7. Yi Huang & Marco Pagano & Ugo Panizza, 2020. "Local Crowding‐Out in China," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(6), pages 2855-2898, December.
    8. Giorgio Bellettini & Carlotta Berti Ceroni & Giovanni Prarolo, 2014. "Knowing The Right Person In The Right Place: Political Connections And Resistance To Change," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 641-671, June.
    9. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    10. Yan-Shing Chen & Chung-Hua Shen & Chih-Yung Lin, 2014. "The Benefits of Political Connection: Evidence from Individual Bank-Loan Contracts," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 287-305, June.
    11. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Zheng (Michael) Song, 2015. "Grasp the Large, Let Go of the Small: The Transformation of the State Sector in China," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 295-366.
    12. Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Luc Laeven & David Moreno, 2022. "Debt Overhang, Rollover Risk, and Corporate Investment: Evidence from the European Crisis," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(6), pages 2353-2395.
    13. Bliss, Mark A. & Gul, Ferdinand A., 2012. "Political connection and leverage: Some Malaysian evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2344-2350.
    14. Leuz, Christian & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2006. "Political relationships, global financing, and corporate transparency: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 411-439, August.
    15. Maurizio Bussolo & Simon Commander & Stavros Poupakis, 2023. "Political connections and firms: network dimensions," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 256-280.
    16. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 2000. "Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities are Useful: A Comment on Kaplan and Zingales," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 695-705.
    17. Sounman Hong & Jeehun Lim, 2016. "Capture and the bureaucratic mafia: does the revolving door erode bureaucratic integrity?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 69-86, January.
    18. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 2000. "Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Are Not Valid Measures of Financing Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 707-712.
    19. Fazzari, Steven M & Hubbard, R Glenn & Petersen, Bruce C, 1988. "Investment, Financing Decisions, and Tax Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 200-205, May.
    20. Lehrer, Nimrod David, 2018. "The value of political connections in a multiparty parliamentary democracy: Evidence from the 2015 elections in Israel," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 13-58.
    21. Inessa Love, 2003. "Financial Development and Financing Constraints: International Evidence from the Structural Investment Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 765-791, July.
    22. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    23. Miroslav Palanský, 2021. "The value of political connections in the post-transition period: evidence from Czechia," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 121-154, July.
    24. Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2005. "Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth Since World War II," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 835-864.
    25. Yi Huang & Ugo Panizza & Richard Varghese, 2018. "Does Public Debt Crowd Out Corporate Investment? International Evidence," IHEID Working Papers 08-2018, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    26. Hongfeng Peng & Xiao Zhang & Xiaoquan Zhu, 2017. "Political connections of the board of directors and credit financing: evidence from Chinese private enterprises," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1481-1516, December.
    27. Li, Hongbin & Meng, Lingsheng & Wang, Qian & Zhou, Li-An, 2008. "Political connections, financing and firm performance: Evidence from Chinese private firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 283-299, October.
    28. Benjamin M. Blau, 2017. "Lobbying, political connections and emergency lending by the Federal Reserve," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 333-358, September.
    29. Sørensen, Bent E & Kalemli-Özcan, Sebnem & Volosovych, Vadym & Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina & Yesiltas, Sevcan, 2015. "How to construct nationally representative firm level data from the ORBIS global database," CEPR Discussion Papers 10829, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    30. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    31. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    32. Mara Faccio, 2006. "Politically Connected Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 369-386, March.
    33. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    34. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & Bent Sorensen & Carolina Villegas-Sanchez & Vadym Volosovych & Sevcan Yesiltas, 2015. "How to Construct Nationally Representative Firm Level Data from the Orbis Global Database: New Facts and Aggregate Implications," NBER Working Papers 21558, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1994. "Politicians and Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 995-1025.
    37. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Zheng (Michael) Song, 2015. "Grasp the Large, Let Go of the Small: The Transformation of the State Sector in China," NBER Working Papers 21006, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    39. Bellettini, Giorgio & Berti Ceroni, Carlotta & Prarolo, Giovanni, 2013. "Political persistence and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 165-179.
    40. Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Atif Mian, 2005. "Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent Provision in an Emerging Financial Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1371-1411.
    41. Salome Baslandze, 2018. "Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics," 2018 Meeting Papers 1036, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    42. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luo, Lianfa & Cheng, Zhiming & Ye, Qingqing & Cheng, Yanjun & Smyth, Russell & Yang, Zhiqing & Zhang, Le, 2024. "Nonmonetary awards and innovation: Evidence from winning China's Top Brand Contest," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Yujing Huang, 2022. "The Impact of Government Official Assessment on Ecological Poverty Alleviation: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-19, March.
    3. Osei-Tutu, Francis & Weill, Laurent, 2023. "Democracy favors access to credit of firms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Rocca, Maurizio La & Fasano, Francesco & Cappa, Francesco & Neha, Neha, 2022. "The relationship between political connections and firm performance: An empirical analysis in Europe," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    5. Aboushady, Nora & Zaki, Chahir, 2023. "Are global value chains for sale? On business-state relations in the MENA region," IDOS Discussion Papers 17/2023, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    6. Jackowicz, Krzysztof & Kozłowski, Łukasz & Podgórski, Błażej, 2022. "Political appointees and firms’ long-term capital market performance: Evidence from Central European countries," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    7. Michelson, Noam, 2023. "The revolving door of former civil servants and firm value: A comprehensive approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Panizza, Ugo & Bussolo, Maurizio & de Nicola, Francesca & Varghese, Richard, 2019. "Political Connections and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 14126, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Zhang, Dongyang & Liu, Deqiang, 2017. "Determinants of the capital structure of Chinese non-listed enterprises: Is TFP efficient?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 179-202.
    3. Yi Huang & Marco Pagano & Ugo Panizza, 2020. "Local Crowding‐Out in China," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(6), pages 2855-2898, December.
    4. Ebrahim, M. Shahid & Girma, Sourafel & Shah, M. Eskandar & Williams, Jonathan, 2014. "Dynamic capital structure and political patronage: The case of Malaysia," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 117-128.
    5. Michelson, Noam, 2023. "The revolving door of former civil servants and firm value: A comprehensive approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Yeh, Yin-Hua & Shu, Pei-Gi & Chiu, Shean-Bii, 2013. "Political connections, corporate governance and preferential bank loans," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1079-1101.
    7. Dongyang Zhang, 2017. "Is working capital management value-enhancing through alleviating financial constraints? Evidence from Chinese non-listed firms," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 373-406, October.
    8. Saira Qasim, 2021. "Financial Constraints across Pakistani Listed Firms," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 57-69, April.
    9. Dang, Viet Anh & Kim, Minjoo & Shin, Yongcheol, 2014. "Asymmetric adjustment toward optimal capital structure: Evidence from a crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 226-242.
    10. Nan Zhang & Qiaozhuan Liang & Huiying Li & Xiao Wang, 2022. "The organizational relationship–based political connection and debt financing: Evidence from Chinese private firms," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 69-105, January.
    11. Nys, Emmanuelle & Tarazi, Amine & Trinugroho, Irwan, 2015. "Political connections, bank deposits, and formal deposit insurance," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 83-104.
    12. Lijuan Xiao & Min Bai & Yafeng Qin & Lingyun Xiong & Lijuan Yang, 2021. "Financial Slack and Inefficient Investment Decisions in China," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 920-941, June.
    13. Thanh Ngo & Jurica Susnjara, 2020. "Government contracts and US bond yield spreads: A study on costs and benefits of materialized political connections," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(7-8), pages 1059-1085, July.
    14. Kusnadi, Yuanto & Wei, K.C. John, 2011. "The determinants of corporate cash management policies: Evidence from around the world," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 725-740, June.
    15. Aflatooni, Abbas & Ghaderi, Kaveh & Mansouri, Kefsan, 2022. "Sanctions against Iran, political connections and speed of adjustment," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PB).
    16. Chen, Shimin & Sun, Zheng & Tang, Song & Wu, Donghui, 2011. "Government intervention and investment efficiency: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 259-271, April.
    17. Emmanuelle Nys & Amine Tarazi & Irwan Trinugroho, 2013. "Political Connections, Bank Deposits, and Formal Deposit Insurance: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Working Papers hal-00916513, HAL.
    18. Fan, Joseph P.H. & Rui, Oliver Meng & Zhao, Mengxin, 2008. "Public governance and corporate finance: Evidence from corruption cases," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 343-364, September.
    19. José Manuel Mansilla-Fernández & Juliette Milgram-Baleix, 2023. "Working capital management, financial constraints and exports: evidence from European and US manufacturers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(4), pages 1769-1810, April.
    20. Alter, Adrian & Elekdag, Selim, 2020. "Emerging market corporate leverage and global financial conditions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Investment; Political connections; Corruption; Financial constraints;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • P12 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Enterprises
    • P14 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Property Rights

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:71:y:2022:i:c:s0176268021000653. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.