Corporate political spending and state tax policy: Evidence from Citizens United

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Slattery, Cailin; Tazhitdinova, Alisa; Robinson, Sarah
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104859
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Campaign finance; political contributions; Citizens United; Independent spending; state taxes; State revenues; State expenditures

摘要

To what extent is U.S. state tax policy affected by corporate political contributions? The 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling provides an exogenous shock to corporate campaign spending, allowing corporations to spend on elections in 23 states which previously had spending bans. Ten years after the ruling and for a wide range of outcomes, we are not able to identify statistically significant effects of corporate independent expenditures on state tax policy, including tax rates, discretionary tax breaks, and tax revenues. Our results allow for a moderate economic effect on corporate tax rates and revenues, but suggest economically insignificant effects for other tax outcomes of interest to firms and their owners. A complementary analysis of the original introduction of the spending bans supports our finding that corporate spending has modest, if any, effects on tax policy.(c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.