Business Commons^™

The Effects Of Bank Lobbying And Elections Surprises, Gregory Logan Tarbet

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This paper examines the stock market reaction to banks that lobby relative to banks that did not lobby in the period around the November 9, 2016, U.S. presidential election. Using three different methods of event studies to calculate the cumulative average return, we find that lobbying in banks has a meaningful relationship to an abnormal increase in those firm’s stock prices. Then we attempt to control for both the systemic importance and size of these institutions by performing cross-sectional regressions that include matched size, and the systemic nature of the banks. The results suggest that a heavily regulated industry such …