Seminar Series

2023 - 2024

Speaker: Matthew Boland (St Mary U, Canada).

Title: “Are Firms Ideologically Fickle?”. 

joint with Bryce CROSS (St Mary U, Canada). 

Date: Thursday, February 29th at 12h30 (Paris Time).

Abstract: This paper tests whether U.S. firms exhibit ideologically fickle behavior in their political contributions using a regression discontinuity design around U.S. House of Representatives elections. We find that firms reduce their contributions to losing parties, suggesting opportunistic rather than ideologically driven behavior. Additionally, we find evidence that much of the fickle behavior is driven by firms switching political affiliation and that this behavior is heterogeneous, across firms. We then conduct an exploratory analysis to characterize firms that switch political affiliation. This work contributes to the debate on whether corporate political contributions are investments or consumption, finding evidence for the investment theory. Our results contribute to the corporate governance literature, suggesting that political contributions are strategic decisions aimed at maximizing shareholder value, rather than a form of consumption. 

Here is, a link to the speaker’s and the FEELab website:

https://www.matthewboland.com/

https://sites.google.com/view/feelabtbs/

You are cordially invited to participate in the seminar, which will take place in Room 321, Lascrosses building. 

For more information, please contact: Pierre Mella-Barral p.mella-barral@tbs-education.fr