Corporate Bond Issuance From Birthplace‐Connected Politicians
研究发现，公司总部位于中国证监会主席出生地时，发行债券的概率更高，且这些公司初始信用评级较低、勉强达到量化门槛，这种偏袒在主席家乡偏好强时更明显，但反腐运动后仍存在，表明并非主要源于腐败动机。
ABSTRACT While numerous studies examine the impact of political factors on corporate bonds, there is scant literature focusing on the influence of politicians' birthplace favouritism on the likelihood of corporate bond issuance. To address this gap, we leverage turnover events of the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to identify shifts in regions favoured by politicians. Our findings reveal that firms headquartered in the birthplace of the incumbent CSRC chairman have a higher probability of issuing bonds. Channel analysis indicates that firms issuing bonds and headquartered in the incumbent CSRC chairman's birthplace are more likely to possess lower initial credit ratings and barely meet the CSRC's quantitative thresholds. The birthplace favouritism of politicians in corporate bond issuance is more pronounced among chairmen with strong hometown preferences and less pronounced when concerns about their political careers are high. Furthermore, the positive relationship between politicians' birthplace favouritism and bond issuance likelihood remains unaffected following the anti‐corruption campaign, highlighting that such favouritism is unlikely to be primarily driven by corrupt motives.