U.S. banks’ IPOs and political money contributions

Abstract

This study analyses the effect of political money contributions on U.S. banks’ IPOs. We employ unbalanced panel data of 367 U.S. banks’ IPOs for the period January 1998 to December 2019. Our findings reveal that investors perceive Political Money Contributions (PMC) by U.S. banks as a proxy for political reach and connectedness. We document an inverse relationship between total PMC and the level of underpricing, which implies that both lobbying and PAC expenditure pay off on issue day as donors incur less underpricing. Initial returns decrease with PAC contributions to House of Representatives candidates, whereas the returns relate to the partisan identity of the candidates receiving PAC contributions. We document that those individual contributions by directors bring significant benefits to the IPO banks. Finally, we show that the political contributions of board members, particularly those of CEOs and founders, are associated with better returns in the long term.