全球智库信息集成服务系统(G2TT): DP13025 Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence

G2TT

来源类型	Discussion paper
规范类型	论文
来源ID	DP13025
	DP13025 Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence
	Marianne Bertrand; Raymond Fisman; Matilde Bombardini; Francesco Trebbi
发表日期	2018-06-29
出版年	2018
语种	英语
摘要	We explore the role of charitable giving as a means of political influence, a channel that has been heretofore unexplored in the political economy literature. For philanthropic foundations associated with Fortune 500 and S&P500 corporations, we show that grants given to charitable organizations located in a congressional district increase when its representative obtains seats on committees that are of policy relevance to the firm associated with the foundation. This pattern parallels that of publicly disclosed Political Action Committee (PAC) spending. As further evidence on firms' political motivations for charitable giving, we show that a member of Congress's departure leads to a short-term decline in charitable giving to his district, and we again observe similar patterns in PAC spending. Charities directly linked to politicians through personal financial disclosure forms led in accordance to Ethics in Government Act requirements exhibit similar patterns of political dependence. Our analysis suggests that firms deploy their charitable foundations as a form of tax-exempt influence seeking. Based on a straightforward model of political influence, our estimates imply that 7.2 percent of total U.S. corporate charitable giving is politically motivated, an amount that is economically significant: it is 280 percent larger than annual PAC contributions and about 40 percent of total federal lobbying expenditures. Given the lack of formal electoral or regulatory disclosure requirements, charitable giving may be a form of political influence that goes mostly undetected by voters and shareholders, and which is directly subsidized by taxpayers.
主题	Public Economics
URL	https://cepr.org/publications/dp13025
来源智库	Centre for Economic Policy Research (United Kingdom)
资源类型	智库出版物
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/541832
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Marianne Bertrand,Raymond Fisman,Matilde Bombardini,et al. DP13025 Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence. 2018.