Capture

In new research, Andrey Simonov, Daniil Mikhailov, Ruben Enikolopov, and Ruben Durante estimate that when a 2016 law pushed Russia’s leading news aggregator Yandex to reduce its references to independent outlets, readers kept following its recommended news stories as before, reducing traffic to the excluded outlets. In response, excluded outlets changed the news they produced.

In new research, Francisco E. Beneke Avila proposes a multifactor test to distinguish between the legitimate exercise of the right to lobbying and efforts to capture areas of public policy. He argues that the latter is an abuse of the firm’s political rights that can justify the intervention of EU competition authorities when corporate political activity leads to a lessening of competition. 

The rise of the far right has been a defining feature of political systems in developed democracies over the past two decades. In recent research, Alison Johnston and Juliet Johnson demonstrate that domestic bond investors have become an important constraint on populist governments and their access to capital. 

In new research, Reilly S. Steel finds that corporate leaders’ individual political preferences are shifting left, but their aggregate spending remains skewed to the right. 

In new research, Vishavdeep Sharma and Krishnendu Ghosh Dastidar analyze corporate corruption through the lens of market competition. Firms often bribe officials to block rivals from entering their markets, and their incentive to do so depends less on how competitive a market is than on what kind of competition it has.

In new research, Luca Macedoni and Ariel Weinberger argue that large firms are more likely to lobby in favor of strict industry regulations when they can reduce competition by imposing high fixed costs on smaller, less-profitable firms.

ProMarket Managing Editor Andy Shi interviews Virginia Tech Professor Chad Levinson about his forthcoming book, The President's Echo System: How Foreign Policy Is Sold to Americans, out June 2 at Harvard University Press.

In a recent article, Kate M. Conlow explores how feeble requirements among the American academic economics community to disclose conflicts of interest are compromising research and harming policymaking.

Julia Cagé, Caroline Le Pennec, and Elisa Mougin discuss their recent research on France’s 1995 ban on corporate contributions to political campaigns. The ban pushed candidates to de-emphasize local politics in favor of national issues and, in many cases, adopt more extreme rhetoric.

In new research, Alexander Furnas, Timothy LaPira, and Clare Brock find that most politically active organizations engage in either campaign contributions or lobbying, but rarely both.The findings have implications for regulation and future academic research.