Big Business Owners in Politics

Moonlighting Politicians: A Survey and Research Agenda

“…Francis et al (2009: 696) illustrate that in the Chinese IPO market, which is strictly regulated by the government in terms of price-and quantity-fixing, politically connected firms obtain a "relatively higher offering price, lower underpricing and lower fixed costs during the goingpublic process". Finally, Bunkanwanicha and Wiwattanakantang (2009) find that business tycoons holding top political offices in Thailand use their political power to implement/modify regulations and public policies in ways favourable to their firms.…”

“…Note that moonlighting in this context if often understood to not only cover politicians hired by a firm, but also politicians' partial or complete ownership of a firm (Faccio 2006;Bunkanwanicha and Wiwattanakantang 2009).…”

“…One promising research strategy here might be to carefully analyse independent secondary sources like, e.g., media reports (see Bunkanwanicha and Wiwattanakantang 2009). Alternatively, content analysis may allow verifying whether interest-group positions/statements find their way into 'their' politicians' speeches, enquiries, bills, or policy initiatives.…”

Political activity and firm performance within nonmarket research: A review and international comparative assessment

“…Anticorruption reforms by the Malaysian government transformed the institutional environment and spawned enquiries into whether private gains continued to exist through political connections (Imai, 2006). Weak systems of checks and balance are institutional voids that allow politicians and firms to extract economic rents and encourage business owners to enter politics for private gains (Bunkanwanicha & Wiwattanakantang, 2009). Some of the studies examined CPA in high corruption contexts where "social lending" (Khwaja & Mian, 2005) or "memo-lending" (Leuz & Oberholzer-Gee, 2006) are prevalent.…”

“…Politicians on corporate boards may extract rent from firms (Carretta et al, 2012) or extend government rents to firms (Hillman, 2005). The entry of business executives into politics is motivated by several reasons which include the alignment of interests and rent extraction (Bunkanwanicha & Wiwattanakantang, 2009).…”