Political Determinants of Government Loans in Japan
利用1975-1992年日本县级面板数据，发现执政的自民党议员的选举脆弱性和资历与政府贷款规模正相关，且这种政治效应仅存在于政府贷款而非私人贷款，表明政府贷款被用于政治目的。
This paper examines the political determinants of government banks’ lending decisions using prefecture‐level panel data on Japan’s government loans from 1975 to 1992. It finds that the size of government loans is positively correlated with two political factors: (1) the electoral vulnerability of politicians who belong to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and (2) their seniority. These political effects are statistically robust to the inclusion of prefecture fixed effects, year fixed effects, and other socioeconomic factors and, more important, are present only in government loans, and not in private loans. These results suggest that self‐interested LDP members (ab)used government loans for political purposes as implied by the “political view” of government banks.