Essays in banking and corporate finance
This dissertation is made of three distinct chapters. The first chapter examines the causal link between banks' syndicated loan supply and non financial firms' campaign contributions for US elections during the 2007 2008 financial crisis. The results indicate that a 10% decrease in loan supply of a given firm by its pre crisis relationship lenders during the early crisis period leads to a 9% increase in firm's campaign contributions in 2008. Further, firms' level of past campaign contributions is positively associated with favorable loan terms for the future. The findings lend support to the idea that campaign contributions are an investment in political capital rather than merely a form of consumption good. The second chapter identifies the effect of banks' industry exposures prior to market entry on the output growth of manufacturing sectors through US bank entry deregulations. The findings indicate that the larger the discrepancy in specialization in an industry between a state pair, the higher the impact of banking integration on the growth of that sector in the state that is less specialized. The last chapter examines whether banking integration across regions has any impact on the market for corporate control between them. The results show that there are more M&As and divestitures across state pairs whose banking systems have experienced a higher integration, compared to state pairs with no such integration. The findings in the last two chapters indicate a banking channel that shapes the states' industrial landscape.