Abstract This paper examines how politically connected firms shape housing supply in U.S. cities. Using new data on campaign donations to U.S. mayors and a regression discontinuity design, I present three findings. First, developers connected to the mayor sell more new housing units. Second, more sales of new housing by connected developers coincide with higher local housing supply: cities where mayors received more developer donations issue nearly 70 percent more permits for new housing units. Third, differences in mayors’ pre-existing policy stances—rather than connections to developers—is a quantitatively larger determinant of local housing supply.

Abstract We show that the financial sector’s asset supply elasticities are sufficient statistics summarizing its macroeconomic effects for a large class of financial frictions. These elasticities are crucial for a wide range of policy questions, ranging from the size of fiscal multipliers to the relative effectiveness of asset purchases targeting the financial sector versus tax cuts targeting households. Workhorse macroeconomic models imply different values of these elasticities, generating output responses to policies that differ by orders of magnitude. We construct empirical measures of these elasticities and evaluate their policy implications in a quantitative model with household heterogeneity and illiquidity.

Abstract Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) allow traders to express their willingness to pay for quick execution through a public priority fee bidding mechanism. We provide evidence that high-fee DEX trades are more informative and contribute more to price discovery. Using address-level blockchain transaction data, we show that informed traders persistently bid higher fees to secure early execution, revealing a strong willingness to pay for execution priority. Further, analysis of Ethereum mempool data demonstrates that informed traders employ a “jump bidding” strategy, placing high initial bids to deter potential competitors.

ABSTRACT The link between corporate bond credit spreads and secondary market illiquidity in the cross section has grown stronger since 2005, resulting in a higher liquidity component in credit spreads. Using U.S. investor holdings data, we show that short‐term investors (e.g., mutual funds/exchange‐traded funds [ETFs]) increase trading activities in the secondary market, amplifying the effect of secondary market frictions on prices. We provide a model featuring heterogeneous investors with different trading needs and heterogeneous bonds to investigate the impact of the rapid‐growing mutual fund/ETF sector on the corporate bond market. We find the change in investor composition can quantitatively explain the aggregate trend.

Abstract We examine whether free-speech protections influence corporate environmental performance. Using the staggered enactment of U.S. anti-SLAPP statutes in a stacked difference-in-differences design from 1990 to 2019, we find that these laws significantly reduce firms’ toxic emissions without curbing economic activity. Anti-SLAPP enactments also promote environmental investment through green innovation, abatement spending, and waste reduction management, and strengthen governance via improved sustainability oversight, ESG-linked executive pay, employee training, and supply chain management. The effects are stronger when stakeholder monitoring is stronger and when managerial incentives embed sustainability goals. Overall, free-speech protections generate powerful environmental benefits.

ABSTRACT Prior research has pointed to differences in organizational capital as a reason for the persistent performance discrepancies among otherwise similar firms. In this paper, we develop and validate a new measure of organizational capital. Based on over a million crowd‐sourced employee reviews scraped from Glassdoor, we construct the measure of organizational capital at the firm‐year level using the word embedding model and ChatGPT‐generated synthetic reviews. Our measure varies over time in accordance with macro trends, and differs both across and within firms, reflecting firm heterogeneity and major internal changes. We validate our measure by testing empirical predictions of the properties of organizational capital discussed in prior literature. Our findings suggest that this measure captures a slowly evolving intangible asset that is significantly associated with firm performance and top management's influence, aligning with the conceptualization of organizational capital by Dessein and Prat. We further showcase applications of our measure in accounting, economics, finance, and management literature. Taken together, the paper provides implications for various stakeholders who are interested in assessing and managing firms' organizational capital.