Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 21st Apr 2025, 08:51:38am CEST
Watching the Watchdogs: Tracking SEC Inquiries using Geolocation Data
William Gerken1, Steven Irlbeck2, Marcus Painter3, Guangli Zhang3
1University of Kentucky; 2University of New Hampshire; 3Saint Louis University
Discussant: Ryan Israelsen (Michigan State University)
The Securities and Exchange Commission's investigative process remains opaque and challenging to study due to limited observability. Leveraging de-identified smartphone geolocation data, we provide new insights into the SEC's monitoring practices by tracking SEC-associated devices that visit firm headquarters. We document that SEC visits frequently occur outside formal investigations, target larger firms and those with prior enforcement actions, and cluster within industries, with substantial cross-regional monitoring. These visits are economically meaningful events, associated with significant negative stock price reactions even when no formal investigation follows. We also find that while insiders are generally less likely to sell around visits, those who do sell avoid substantial losses. Our results reveal previously unobservable aspects of SEC oversight and suggest important information flows occur outside of formal proceedings.
Corporate Lobbying of Bureaucrats
Michelle Lowry1, Ekaterina Volkova2
1Drexel University, USA; 2University of Melbourne, Australia
Discussant: Nandini Gupta (Indiana University)
We find that 80% of companies that lobby Congress also lobby executive agencies. Although executive agencies are not beholden to companies for campaign contributions, the agencies are nevertheless influenced by lobbying: companies’ lobbying leads to more favorable rules, more special exemptions, more government contracts, and more favorable decisions on enforcement actions. Agencies’ bestowment of favors appears to be motivated by opportunities within the private sector: lobbying is significantly greater among agencies that have stronger revolving door relations with the private sector. Following a negative exogenous shock to agency power, the Supreme Court’s Chevron decision, firms engaged in agency lobbying experienced negative abnormal returns, underscoring the strategic value of lobbying agencies.
