Original
Mitigating policy uncertainty: What financial markets reveal about firm‐level lobbying
Abstract
Abstract Elections can lead to substantial policy changes and, thus, are a significant source of risk. Firms can respond to such policy uncertainty by lobbying, but it is hard to quantify whether they do so and, if so, how much lobbying benefits them. We construct a new dataset and leverage investors’ expectations of variability in stock returns in the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election to generate a new firm‐level measure of exposure to policy uncertainty. We show that lobbying reduces policy uncertainty, and that this result holds even after controlling for selection into lobbying and sectoral heterogeneity. We then develop and quantify a model of heterogeneous firms with endogenous lobbying. We find that affecting policy through lobbying is costly and the returns from it are highly skewed and rapidly diminishing. Thus, while lobbying expenditures reduce the impact of policy risk, few firms anticipate sufficient gains to invest in it.
中文
缓解政策不确定性：金融市场揭示的企业层面游说
摘要
摘要 选举可能导致重大政策变化，因此是重要的风险来源。企业可以通过游说来应对这种政策不确定性，但很难量化它们是否这样做，以及如果是，游说能给它们带来多少好处。我们构建了一个新数据集，并利用投资者对2020年美国总统大选后股票收益波动性的预期，生成了一种新的企业层面政策不确定性暴露度量。我们表明，游说降低了政策不确定性，并且这一结果在控制游说选择效应和部门异质性后仍然成立。随后，我们构建并量化了一个具有内生游说的异质性企业模型。我们发现，通过游说影响政策代价高昂，且其回报高度偏斜并迅速递减。因此，尽管游说支出降低了政策风险的影响，但很少有企业预期能获得足够收益而投资于游说。
关键词
政策不确定性、游说、金融市场、企业、选举、股票收益、异质性企业、内生游说