Abstract
Asetting in which customer-owned mutual companies converted to publicly listed firms created a plausibly exogenous increase in stock ownership. We use this shock to identify the effect of ownership of publicly listed shares on political behavior. Using instrumental variable regressions, difference-in-differences analyses, and matching methods, we find the shock changed the way people vote in the affected areas, with the demutualizations being followed by a 1.7-2.7-percentage-point increase in right-of-center vote share. Analyses of demutualizations that did not involve public listing of shares suggest that explanations based on wealth, liquidity, and tax-related incentives do not drive the results, and that the ownership of publicly listed shares was instrumental in generating the increase in conservative voting.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 945-963 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Management Science |
Volume | 62 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2016 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- Attention
- Identity
- Political Behavior
- Salience
- Stock Ownership