With surges in U.S. corporate political spending following the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United v. FEC, this paper studies the transparency of corporate political spending. We argue that shareholder engagements aimed at improving such transparency are more successful than previously documented in the literature. Some “voluntary” disclosures by firms are the result of settled engagements. Firms with political action committees, weaker political transparency, more politically connected directors, and higher sensitivity to political uncertainty are more likely to be targeted by activist shareholders. Institutional investors, especially socially responsible investment funds, are more likely to succeed after initiating engagements. Using hand-collected public announcements of engagement outcomes, we find that the stock market reacts positively (negatively) to successful (unsuccessful) engagements in politically active firms. Moreover, increased transparency facilitates the investors’ assessment of firms’ exposure to external political risks, the monitoring of firms’ political expenditure, and tacit coordination among industry peers. Collectively, our results suggest that investors value corporate political transparency, especially in the case of politically active firms.

在最高法院对Citizens United v. FEC作出裁决后，美国企业政治支出激增，本文研究了企业政治支出的透明度。我们认为，旨在提高这种透明度的股东参与比以前文献中记载的更为成功。公司的一些“自愿”披露是协议约定的结果。拥有政治行动委员会、政治透明度较弱、董事具有更多政治联系以及对政治不确定性更高敏感度的公司更有可能成为激进股东的目标。机构投资者，尤其是具有社会责任感的投资基金，在发起参与后更有可能取得成功。使用手工收集的参与结果的公开公告，我们发现股票市场对政治活跃公司的成功（不成功）参与做出积极（消极）反应。而且，提高透明度有助于投资者评估公司面临的外部政治风险，监控公司的政治支出，以及行业同行之间的默契。总的来说，我们的结果表明投资者重视企业的政治透明度，尤其是在政治活跃的公司的情况下。