Lobbying as a hedge on political risk : when size matters

Abstract

I develop a three-period asset pricing model with heterogeneity in firms size and a government that introduces a policy distortion. I find that large firms can better hedge the political uncertainty associated with this policy change through lobbying, which leads them to earn lower expected returns. I provide two strands of empirical evidence consistent with the model predictions. The first one looks at the behavior of a blue versus red industries around the unexpected results of the 2016 US Presidential election. The second one uses portfolio sorting and double-sorting to reach consistent conclusions.