We draw on the Positive Political Theory literature to develop insights into how firms decide whether to lobby legislatures or agencies in order to gain favorable policy outcomes. We present a simple structural model of the interaction among a firm, a legislature, an executive, a court and an...

We introduce synthetic control analysis to management research. This recently developed statistical methodology overcomes challenges to causal inference in contexts constrained by small samples or few occurrences of the phenomenon of interest. Synthetic control constructs a replica of a focal...

We offer two integrated strategies managers can use in the face of regulatory uncertainty vis-à-vis the natural environment. As integrated strategies, they both recognize non-market forces while taking into account market realities. Advocating for Pragmatic, Progressive Policy enables firms to...

We argue that information asymmetries between regulators and firms increase the administrative decision costs of initiating new policies due to the costs of satisfying evidentiary or “burden of proof” requirements. We further contend that regulators with better information about regulated...

Campaign contributions are typically seen as a strategic investment for firms; recent empirical evidence, however, has shown few connections between firms’ political investments and regulatory or performance improvements, prompting researchers to explore agency-based explanations for corporate...

Widespread dissatisfaction with corporate participation in elections persists despite strict regulations. Exploiting within firm-cycle cross-candidate variation and across firm-cycle variation, we demonstrate that corporate spending on US elections exceeds disclosed campaign contributions. Firms...

Individuals dominate money in politics, accounting for over 90% of federal campaign contributions, yet studies of individuals' giving patterns are scarce. We construct a new dataset to examine all of the contributions made between 1991 and 2008 by all 2,198 people who served as S&P 500 CEOs for...