Friday, March 5, 2010

Lobbyists and Crises

Is anyone familiar with this study?

"The International Monetary Fund recently found that banks that spent more to influence policy over the last decade were more likely to take more securitization risks, have larger loan defaults and experience sharper stock falls during crucial points of the crisis."

Cyran, Robert and James Pethokoukis. 2010. "Formidable Lobbyists." New York Times (3 March): p. B 2.

2 comments:

Max jr said...

I suppose this is the IMF paper:
A Fistful Of Dollars: Lobbying And The Financial Crisis ( pdf)

Abstract:

Using detailed information on lobbying and mortgage lending activities, we find that lenders lobbying more on issues related to mortgage lending (i) had higher loan-to-income ratios, (ii) securitized more intensively, and (iii) had faster growing portfolios. Ex-post, delinquency rates are higher in areas where lobbyist’ lending grew faster and they experienced negative abnormal stock returns during key crisis events. The findings are robust to (i) falsification tests using lobbying on issues unrelated to mortgage lending, (ii) a difference-in-difference approach based on state-level laws, and (iii) instrumental variables strategies. These results show that lobbying lenders engage in riskier lending.



I haven't read it yet though.

Eleanor said...

Interesting. Of course, if you think you have bought the government, you don't have to worry about doing your job.