Elections, Political Competition and Bank Failure

Liu, Wai-Man and Ngo, Phong (2012): Elections, Political Competition and Bank Failure.

Abstract

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.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: bank failure, elections, political competition
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D73 - Bureaucracy ; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations ; Corruption; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G28 - Government Policy and Regulation; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G21 - Banks ; Depository Institutions ; Micro Finance Institutions ; Mortgages

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