Political Investments and the Price of Credit Risk: Evidence from Credit Default Swaps

Hanouna, Paul and Ovtchinnikov, Alexei V and Prabhat, Saumya (2014) Political Investments and the Price of Credit Risk: Evidence from Credit Default Swaps. Working Paper. SSRN.

[thumbnail of Download]
Preview
Text (Download)
9.pdf

Download (422kB) | Preview

Abstract

We show that political investments, defined as political contributions and lobbying expenditure, have a large impact on the firm’s credit risk. Firms that invest in politics, on average, have significantly and economically lower CDS spreads. We address endogeneity issues by utilizing a quasi-natural experiment and an instrumental variable approach to obtain exogenous variations in political investments, and find that political investments reduce the price of credit risk. The reduction in spreads is greater for firms that are more sensitive to government policies. In addition, and consistent with agency conflicts, political investments by weakly governed firms are relatively less effective at reducing the market price of credit risk.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Subjects: Business and Management
Finance
Date Deposited: 17 Nov 2014 19:46
Last Modified: 11 Jul 2023 19:00
URI: https://eprints.exchange.isb.edu/id/eprint/315

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item