Data and Code for "Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence"

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago. Booth School of Business; Matilde Bombardini, University of British Columbia; Raymond Fisman, Boston University; Francesco Trebbi, University of British Columbia

Version: View help for Version V2

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Code_Input			02/12/2020 10:45:PM
Code_Output			02/11/2020 10:59:PM
Data			02/11/2020 11:02:PM
Tables			02/11/2020 10:59:PM
Permission_FoundationSearch.pdf	application/pdf	847.3 KB	02/24/2020 08:06:AM
Readme.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	28.7 KB	02/24/2020 08:27:AM
Readme.pdf	application/pdf	504.9 KB	02/24/2020 08:26:AM

Project Citation:

Bertrand, Marianne, Bombardini, Matilde, Fisman, Raymond , and Trebbi, Francesco. Data and Code for “Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence.” Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2021. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-02-10. https://doi.org/10.3886/E116689V2

Project Description

Summary: We analyze the role of charitable giving as a means of political influence, a channel that has been heretofore unexplored in the political economy literature. For philanthropic foundations associated with Fortune 500 and S&P500 corporations, we show that grants given to charitable organizations located in a congressional district increase when its representative obtains seats on committees that are of policy relevance to the firm associated with the foundation. This pattern parallels that of publicly disclosed Political Action Committee (PAC) spending. As further evidence on firms' political motivations for charitable giving, we show that a member of Congress's departure is associated with a short-term decline in charitable giving to his district, and we again observe similar patterns in PAC spending. Charities directly linked to politicians through personal financial disclosure forms filed in accordance with Ethics in Government Act requirements similarly exhibit patterns that are consistent with political dependence. Our analysis suggests that firms may deploy their charitable foundations as a form of tax-exempt influence seeking. Based on a stylized model of political influence, our most conservative estimates imply that around 7 percent of total U.S. corporate charitable giving can be interpreted as politically motivated, an amount that is economically significant: it is 2.5 times larger than annual PAC contributions and about 36 percent of total federal lobbying expenditures. Given the lack of formal electoral or regulatory disclosure requirements, charitable giving may be a form of political influence that goes mostly undetected by voters and shareholders, and which is subsidized by taxpayers.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Corporate social responsibility; Corporate charities; Campaign contributions

JEL Classification:
      G38 Corporate Finance and Governance: Government Policy and Regulation
      L30 Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise: General
      P48 Other Economic Systems: Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies

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V2 [2021-02-10]

V1 [2019-12-17]

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