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Two Faces Of Corporate Lobbying: Evidence From The Pharmaceutical Industry, Dongnyoung Kim, Incheol Kim, Omer Unsal

Finance Faculty Publications

This paper addresses two side effects of corporate lobbying on firm value in the pharmaceutical industry. Employing corporate lobbying and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval data for the period from 1998 to 2013, we find that lobbying firms have a 67.3 percent higher chance that their new prescription drugs are approved by the FDA than non-lobbying firms. On the 3-day window surrounding FDA approval announcements, lobbying firms yield, on average, a 1.1% higher market reaction than non-lobbying peers. However, we also find that insiders in lobbying firms abnormally purchase their own stocks prior to FDA approvals. These opportunistic …