Political uncertainty leads to greater information asymmetry among contracting parties to the firm, resulting in an increased demand for accounting conservatism. Exploiting the exogenous variation in political uncertainty induced by the U.S. gubernatorial election cycle over the period 1963-2016, we find that the asymmetric timeliness of news recognition increases with political uncertainty. Our political uncertainty hypothesis operates through the contracting demand channel. Accordingly, we find that the political uncertainty effect is more pronounced for firms in states with lower electoral participation, for firms with greater industry exposures to contracting needs, for firms with higher leverage and lower managerial ownership, and for firms with stronger internal corporate governance mechanisms.

We show that global political uncertainty, measured by the U.S. election cycle, on average, leads to a fall in equity returns in fifty non-U.S. countries. At the same time, market volatilities rise, local currencies depreciate, and sovereign bond returns increase. The effect of global political uncertainty on equity prices increases with the level of uncertainty in U.S. election outcomes and a country’s equity market exposure to foreign investors, but does not vary with the country’s international trade exposure. These findings suggest that global political uncertainty increases investors’ aggregate risk aversion, leading to a flight to safety.(JEL F30, F36, G12, G15, G18) Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

We model and predict that politicians have incentives to delay bank failure in election years and that this incentive is exacerbated if the election is close. Our empirical application using the US data supports these predictions. At the bank level, we show that bank failure in an election year is four times less likely to occur if the election was among the most competitive (top quartile). At the state level, bank failure is about 1.8 times less likely to occur in an election year. A three point swing in the competitiveness of the election increases this election year bias to 2.2.

We model and predict that politicians have incentives to delay bank failure in election years and that this incentive is exacerbated if the election is close. Our empirical application using the US data supports these predictions. At the bank level, we show that bank failure in an election year is four times less likely to occur if the election was among the most competitive (top quartile). At the state level, bank failure is about 1.8 times less likely to occur in an election year. A three point swing in the competitiveness of the election increases this election year bias to 2.2.

We provide evidence that managerial incentives to manipulate real activities can influence the effectiveness of fiscal policy. Increases in federal spending lead government-dependent firms to expand research and development (R&D) investment whereas industry-peer firms contract. The net result is a reduction in industry-level R&D investment. We find evidence of a novel mechanism for the crowding out of peer-firm investment: peer-firm managers respond to falling relative performance by cutting R&D to manage current earnings upward. We show that these differential responses manifest in firm value. These findings are robust to endogeneity and selection concerns as well as a battery of alternative explanations.