Partisan Corporate Speech
We develop a novel measure of partisan corporate speech and establish three stylized facts for S&P 500 firms from 2012 to 2022. First, partisan corporate speech rose sharply. Second, this rise was disproportionately driven by a broad-based increase in Democratic-leaning language. Third, synthetic-control estimates reveal significant and immediate negative return differences for surprising partisan statements, concentrated in responses to external events. We develop a model in which shifts in investor preferences can increase partisan speech even when such speech is associated with lower valuations, and provide evidence consistent with this mechanism.
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Copy CitationWilliam M. Cassidy and Elisabeth Kempf, "Partisan Corporate Speech," NBER Working Paper 33810 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3386/w33810.Download Citation
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