Political lobbying by foreign firms: A new firm-level data set

Abstract

In this paper, we advance recent calls to deliver a novel lobbying data source through which researchers can analyze national and international sociopolitical environments and their impact on foreign firms. Our focus is mainly on lobbying activities by foreign firms in the US. The lobbying activities by foreign firms in the US have increased tremendously in the last two decades. However, due to data challenges, empirical examinations by researchers have been limited on this topic. Limited studies that have examined lobbying activities by foreign firms in the US have studied it at an aggregate level. In this paper, we provide lobbying information for all foreign firms in the US since 1998; empirically validate the data by conducting theory-driven hypotheses testing; and suggest future research ideas.