Political Connections and Firms: Network Dimensions

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Politically connected firms and privileged access to credit: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

“…The group of close associates also includes private companies, entities, trusts charities, foundations, or any other onshore or offshore vehicles controlled, owned or co-owned by primary PEP. Bussolo et al (2018) provide a detailed discussion on the PEP data set.…”

“…5 The original PEP data set has eight categories of politically exposed persons. These comprise individuals in International and Regional Organizations, National, Sub-national and Local Government, State-Owned Enterprises and State-Invested Enterprises, as well as Non-Governmental Organizations ( (Bussolo et al, 2018)). However, for the countries in our sample, after merging with Orbis data we find the four aforementioned categories to be relevant.…”

“…Once the two steps are completed, their combination create our measure of political connections. Bussolo et al (2018) exploit the network dimensions of these connections and provide a detailed discussion of these matching strategies. 9 Table A.2 shows how much of the official gross output (turnover) data from Eurostat is covered by the firms in our sample.…”

Political Connections and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Transition Countries

“…Specifically, we match the names of the people reported in the PEP data set with the names of shareholders and owners listed in Orbis. Bussolo, Commander, and Poupakis (2018) exploit the network dimensions of these connections and provide a detailed discussion of these matching strategies.…”

“…The original PEP data set has eight categories of politically exposed persons. These comprise individuals in International and Regional Organizations, National, Sub-national and Local Government, State-Owned Enterprises and State-Invested Enterprises, as well as Non-Governmental Organizations(Bussolo, Commander, and Poupakis (2018)). However, for the countries in our sample, after merging with Orbis data we find four afore-mentioned categories to be relevant.…”