I examine how political geography affects firms' cost of debt. Policy risk, measured by proximity to political power reflected in firms' position in the country's political map, is negatively related to corporate bond ratings and positively related to firms' cost of debt. I find firms' policy risk can be mitigated by engaging in corporate political strategies like making campaign contributions or lobbying. Consistent with the view that such political strategies effectively protect firms against uncertainty about future policies, I find policy risk has less of an impact on the cost of debt of firms that support more powerful and well-connected politicians in the legislative co-sponsorship network or that spend more money on lobbying. Using a sample of state pension funds' equity holdings, I find that state pension funds exhibit not only local bias but also bias towards politically connected stocks. These politically connected local firms held by state pension funds do not exhibit better performance compared with their local benchmarks not held by these funds before the holding period, and the overweighting of politically connected local firms is negatively related to pension fund returns. My results do not support the information advantage hypothesis that state pension funds exhibit overweighting of local firms because they have an information advantage about home-state firms. I further examine the factors that explain local bias from political perspectives. My results show that local bias is related to public policy integrity and local politicians' congressional connections.

Submitted by Jeferson Lana (jeferson.lana@gvmail.br) on 2017-08-30T17:26:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 [Tese] Versão Entregue - Jeferson Lana.pdf: 1365087 bytes, checksum: d919359d3fee994fb310ce4831445230 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br) on 2017-08-30T17:28:15Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 [Tese] Versão Entregue - Jeferson Lana.pdf: 1365087 bytes, checksum: d919359d3fee994fb310ce4831445230 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-31T12:55:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 [Tese] Versão Entregue - Jeferson Lana.pdf: 1365087 bytes, checksum: d919359d3fee994fb310ce4831445230 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-20 / Nesta tese, proponho que o tempo pode ser entendido como uma variável de desempenho das estratégias políticas corporativas – CPS. O racional por trás dessa proposição é que, ao se envolver com a esfera política via doações às campanhas eleitorais como forma de conexão política, as empresas obtêm, entre outros efeitos, maior velocidade nas respostas de processos que envolvam decisões governamentais. A celeridade é vista como uma consequência ao alinhamento político entre empresa e governo. A partir de uma base de dados que contempla todas as decisões de medidas antidumping solicitadas pelas empresas brasileiras entre 2001 e 2017, duas hipóteses testaram os efeitos das CPS no tempo de decisão de tais medidas. Para os testes, foi utilizada regressão linear multivariada com coeficientes robustos e tratamento das variáveis a partir dos conceitos do design de regressão descontínua. Os resultados apontam que as conexões políticas aumentam a celeridade das decisões sobre as medidas de antidumping. Os resultados sugerem ainda que quanto maiores as capacidades políticas das firmas, medidas pela constância do envolvimento político, menor será o tempo de espera pela decisão final das medidas citadas. Assim, esta tese contribui para a evolução da área de CPS ao trazer uma nova face relevante ao debate dos efeitos das conexões políticas: o tempo. Se tempo é dinheiro, a celeridade das decisões governamentais pode ser o pote de ouro da vez. / In this thesis, I propose that time can be understood as a performance variable of corporate political strategies - CPS. The rationale behind this proposition is that, by engaging with the political are through campaign donations as a form of political connection, firms obtain, among other effects, greater speed in the responses of processes involving governmental decisions. Speed is seen as a consequence of political alignment between business and government. Based on a database that includes all the decisions of antidumping measures requested by the Brazilian companies between 2001 and 2017, two hypotheses tested the effects of the CPS in the time of decision of such measures. For the tests, multivariate linear regression with robust coefficients and treatment of the variables were used from the concepts of the regression discontinuity design. The results show that political connections increase the speed of decisions on antidumping measures. The results also suggest that the greater the political capacities of the firms, measured by the constancy of the political involvement, the shorter the waiting time for the final decision of the mentioned measures. Thus, this thesis contributes to the evolution of the CPS area by bringing a new relevant face to the debate on the effects of political connections: time. If time is money, the speed of government decisions may be the new golden pot of our time.