
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS WORKSHOP
Abstract: We examine the impact of firms’ lobbying activities on resource misallocation in the U.S., focusing on the distortion of firm size. To quantify the macroeconomic consequences of corporate political influence, we develop a multi-sector heterogeneous firm model with endogenous lobbying. Our model is estimated using a novel firm-level lobbying dataset, leveraging variation in the returns to lobbying expenditures through changes in firms’ connections to politicians. Our results show that eliminating lobbying could increase aggregate productivity in the U.S. by 6 percent.
In Song Kim is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. His research interests include International Political Economy, Formal and Quantitative Methodology, and the political economy of lobbying and campaign donations. He focuses on the estimation of political preferences and causal inference with panel data, conducting Big Data analysis in international trade and special interest group politics.
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The Quantitative Research Methods Workshop series is sponsored by the ISPS Center for the Study of American Politics and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale with support from the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund.