I investigate the role of institutional investors in firms’ lobbying activities. Firms with greater lobbying institutional ownership lobby more. Using a novel dataset with lobbying information on congressional bills, I show that institutional investors support portfolio firms by lobbying together on same bills. Bills lobbied by institutional investors are more likely to become laws and the passage of such bills leads to greater abnormal returns. Additional evidence suggests that institutional investors protect firms’ private political information by voting against shareholder proposals requesting additional lobbying disclosure. The findings have an important economic implication: financial institutions provide a helping hand in firms’ external governance related to law and politics.

中文翻译：

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企业游说中的隐藏之手

我调查了机构投资者在公司游说活动中的作用。游说机构所有权更大的公司游说更多。使用包含国会法案游说信息的新数据集，我表明机构投资者通过共同游说相同的法案来支持投资组合公司。机构投资者游说的票据更有可能成为法律，此类票据的通过会带来更大的异常收益。其他证据表明，机构投资者通过投票反对要求额外游说披露的股东提案来保护公司的私人政治信息。研究结果具有重要的经济意义：金融机构在公司与法律和政治相关的外部治理方面提供了帮助。