INDEPENDENT AGENCIES, POLITICAL INTERFERENCE, AND FIRM INVESTMENT: EVIDENCE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION
研究欧盟独立监管机构对受监管企业投资率的影响，发现监管独立性使投资率提升约1.2%至3.3%，但政治干预会削弱这一积极效应。
Investment in network infrastructure is crucial for economic growth. This article studies the impact of the presence of independent regulatory agencies ( IRAs ) on the investment of European regulated firms. We account for measurement error in formal independence of IRAs by exploiting cross‐country heterogeneity in the quality of political institutions. Results show that regulatory independence increases firms' investment rate by around 1.2%–3.3%. The positive effect survives when we control for social capital accumulation, investor protection, and market liberalization. However, the effect of IRAs is not immune to politics, as we find that political interference in regulatory functions persists in the European Union and is detrimental to firm investment.