We document presidential particularism in the allocation of U.S. federal government contracts. Firms in “Swing” and “Core” states receive disproportionately higher federal contracts during election cycles. Contracts peak in reelection years for incumbent presidents suggesting electoral and partisan motives. Awards to “Core” states fall relative to “Hostile” states in election years of the presidents’ second terms. Government agencies engage more aggressively in particularism when aligned with the president’s party. Particularism disappeared during the Trump presidency, with Hostile-state firms awarded more contracts. Market participants, who are slow to recognize the relationship between particularism and corporate earning, underreact to this phenomenon.

This paper proposes a novel monetary policy uncertainty (MPU) measure aggregating information from policy communication, policy operation and news coverage. We find that the aggregate MPU measure significantly commands a negative risk premium in the cross-section of the Chinese stock market. Stocks with higher (lower) MPU beta, favored (avoided) for hedging against MPU shocks, contribute to the premium through their under-performance (outperformance). Our results remain robust after controlling for economic uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty, and monetary policy surprises. We further show that the aggregate MPU measure outperforms its individual components in both portfolio- and stock-level asset pricing tests.