The reputational costs of connections to controversial politicians: Evidence from political scandals
利用美国国会218起政治丑闻的外生冲击，研究发现与丑闻议员有竞选捐款关联的公司会遭受价值损失，且损失随管理层不道德倾向增加而增大，丑闻后媒体负面报道增多、股东提案要求披露政治捐款、公司减少政治支出。
Abstract We use the exogenous nature of political scandals to test whether political connections in the form of campaign contributions expose firms to reputational risk. We hand‐collect a sample of 218 scandals of members of the U.S. Congress that occurred between 2000 and 2019 and estimate the abnormal returns around the day a scandal first appeared in the news. We find that connected firms and to a lesser extent other politically active firms experience value losses around corruption scandals involving firms or lobbyists. These losses increase in managers’ propensity to engage in unethical behavior. Moreover, we find that following such corruption scandals, media sources release negative news about connected firms, shareholders of connected firms are more likely to submit proposals on the disclosure of political contributions, and connected firms reduce political spending. Overall, our results suggest that losses around scandals are driven by reputation spillover and investors updating their beliefs about the risks of political contributions.