On March 18, 1976, the Swedish parliament voted on a bill that, if approved, would have substantially increased both the scale and scope of government representation on bank boards. Since parliament was hung, the outcome of the vote was decided by a lottery. We exploit this lottery to study the causal effect on shareholder value of government involvement in the corporate governance of banks. We find that the rejection of the bill resulted in positive abnormal returns that persisted in the following days. The results suggest that unsolicited government involvement in the corporate governance of banks is harmful for owners.

We document that shareholders of high-yield firms are less sensitive to credit rating downgrades the higher the proportion of bank financing in the firm. This positive effect is linked to firm behavior. In the year after the downgrade, high-yield firms with large bank debt ratios i) need to reduce their leverage less, and ii) display higher capital expenditures, compared to peers that rely relatively more on other sources of debt. Bank financing thus helps alleviate the adverse effects of rating downgrades on shareholders and firms in the high-yield segment. As such, one may view our findings as new evidence of the “specialness” and flexibility of bank debt.

We exploit the exogenous Covid-19 shock in a bicultural area of Italy to identify cultural differences in the way companies respond to economic shocks. Firms with managers of diverse cultural backgrounds resort to different forms of government aid, diverge in their investment decisions, and have different growth rates. These findings are consistent with cultural differences in time preferences and debt aversion. Specifically, we find that the response of managers belonging to a more long-term oriented culture is characterized by a lower recourse to debt, more investments and higher growth rates. Overall, our results show that the cultural origin of managers significantly affects firms' reaction to economic shocks and real economic outcomes.

We document significant differences in the financing structures of small firms with managers of diverse cultural backgrounds. To isolate the effect of culture, we exploit cultural heterogeneity within a geographical area with shared regulations, institutions, and macroeconomic cycles. Our findings suggest significant cultural differences in the preference toward debt funding and in the use of formal and informal sources of financing (bank loans and trade credit). Our results are robust to alternative explanations based on potential differences in credit constraints and in the distribution of cultural origins across industries, trading partners, and headquarters locations.