Shining light on corporate political spending: Evidence from shareholder engagements

With surges in U.S. corporate political spending following the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United v. FEC, this paper studies the transparency of corporate political spending. We argue that shareholder engagements aimed at improving such transparency are more successful than previously documented in the literature. Some “voluntary” disclosures by firms are the result of settled engagements. Firms with political action committees, weaker political transparency, more politically connected directors, and higher sensitivity to political uncertainty are more likely to be targeted by activist shareholders. Institutional investors, especially socially responsible investment funds, are more likely to succeed after initiating engagements. Using hand-collected public announcements of engagement outcomes, we find that the stock market reacts positively (negatively) to successful (unsuccessful) engagements in politically active firms. Moreover, increased transparency facilitates the investors’ assessment of firms’ exposure to external political risks, the monitoring of firms’ political expenditure, and tacit coordination among industry peers. Collectively, our results suggest that investors value corporate political transparency, especially in the case of politically active firms.