An Anatomy of Firms’ Political Speech

Pablo Ottonello, Wenting Song and Sebastian Sotelo

No 32923, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study the distribution of political speech across U.S. firms. We develop a measure of political engagement based on firms’ communications (earnings calls, regulatory filings, and social media), by training a large language model to identify statements that contain political opinions. Using these data, we document five facts about firms’ political engagement. (1) Political engagement is rare among firms. (2) Political engagement is concentrated among large firms. (3) Firms tend to specialize in specific topics and outlets. (4) Large firms tend to engage in a wider set of topics and outlets. (5) The 2020 surge in firms’ political engagement was associated with an increase in the engagement of medium-sized firms and a change in the mix of political topics.

JEL-codes: C8 D22 D72 G3 L1 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-ipr, nep-pol and nep-sbm
Note: AP CF EFG IO POL PR
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Working Paper: An Anatomy of Firms’ Political Speech (2024)
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