We examine how political corruption affects corporate investment. We find firms in more corrupt states invest less than firms in less corrupt states. Our results are robust to using alternative investment measures, alternative corruption measures, and different regression specifications. Further, we find that the negative effect of corruption became insignificant after the enactment of Dodd–Frank Whistleblower Provision. The impact of the Dodd–Frank Whistleblower Provision is stronger in states with higher corruption. Our findings suggest that political corruption hinders investment, but the changes in legal environments can help firms reduce the decline in investments in highly corrupt states.

This paper examines how cultural distance affects fund transfers in the internal capital market of multinational firms. The results show that a larger cultural distance significantly reduces internal fund transfers to foreign subsidiaries. These results are robust to alternative measures of cultural distance and different econometric specifications. External shocks do not affect the results. Further analysis shows that the negative cultural impact is driven mainly by the dimensions of power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance. Furthermore, the effect of cultural distance on internal fund transfers is independent of subsidiary productivity, and a larger cultural distance exacerbates the negative impact of corporate diversification on firm value. Overall, our findings highlight the important role that culture plays in multinationals’ global operations.