Payments of bribes and the expenses incurred on rent-seeking activities impose a significant financial burden on private firms, which is compounded when they do not have enough funds of their own or find it costly to borrow externally. This paper hypothesizes that financial constraints magnify...

This paper examines whether political connections ease financial constraints faced by firms. Using firm-level data from six Central and Eastern European economies, the paper shows that politically connected firms: (i) have high levels of leverage, (ii) have low levels of profitability, (iii) are...