Political connections and corporate financial decision making

This paper investigates whether and how political connections influence managerial financial decisions. Our study reveals that those firms that have a politician on its board of directors are highly leveraged, use more long-term debt, hold large excess cash and are associated with low quality financial reporting compared to their non-connected counterparts. These effects escalate with the strength of the connected politician and whether he or his party is in power. The winning party effect is observed to be stronger than victory by the politician himself. Overall, our paper provides strong evidence that political connection is a two-edged sword. It is indeed a valuable resource for connected firms, but it comes at a cost of higher agency problems

Capital Structure and Oligarch Ownership

This study examines the effects of oligarch ownership on corporate capital structures. Using panel data from Ukraine, I find that oligarch-owned companies employ significantly more debt and liabilities than their peers. However, there is no direct relation between oligarch ownership and target capital structure. Whereas the determinants of target leverage are similar across all owners, differences in firm characteristics also have a fairly small effect. I show that larger leverage is due to better access to debt, which results in lower rebalancing costs and faster restructurings of oligarch-owned companies. The findings clearly suggest that oligarchs benefit from the accumulated advantages

The Price of Being a Billionaire in China: Evidence Based on Hurun Rich List

This paper studies how culture affects economic behavior. We explore the reactions of investors, governments and entrepreneurs to the publication of the Hurun Rich List to study the impact of egalitarianism within Chinese Confucian culture. We find that when the Rich List is announced, investors react negatively to the companies controlled by the listed entrepreneurs and their market values drop significantly in the following three years and the government is reluctant to assist listed entrepreneurs and their companies, and even monitors them more closely. Furthermore, listed entrepreneurs are far more likely to be investigated, arrested and charged than other entrepreneurs. In addition, they tend to conceal profits through negative earnings management to avoid public attention. Finally, we observe that the foregoing negative reactions are more pronounced for firms involved in rent-seeking industries and with lower charitable donations