Him Too? Analyzing the Effects of Epstein Connections

Marina Gertsberg, Michaela Pagel and Ekaterina Volkova

No 21352, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: The Epstein files, released between September 2025 and January 2026, offer an unprecedented window into the social and professional network of a convicted sex offender whose ties extended deep into corporate America. We construct a comprehensive sample of all S&P 500 CEOs and board members serving between 2006 and 2026 — 52,266 unique individuals — and search the 1,293,753 text-bearing documents for evidence of their contact with Jeffrey Epstein. Using large language model (LLM) classification of 117,394 matched correspondences, we identify 67,637 that indicate direct contact with 1,179 S&P 500 CEOs or directors. We then document three main findings. First, firms whose CEOs or board members appeared in Epstein-related news coverage experienced significantly negative cumulative abnormal returns of up to -3.7% over a three-day window following the January 30, 2026 DOJ release. Second, adding Epstein-mediated ties to the firm network increases overall density and reduces average path lengths significantly, meaning that Epstein effectively wired corporate America into a denser, more tightly interconnected governance network than would have existed otherwise. Third, we show that Epstein's network transmitted norm contagion through shared board connections. Firms with more Epstein-connected CEOs or directors exhibit significantly worse ESG outcomes: each additional connection is associated with approximately 2.3 more annual governance incidents and 4.0 more total incidents.

Keywords: Connections; Networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G34 G38 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04
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