I study whether firms that receive targeted U.S. state-level subsidies are more likely to subsequently engage in corporate misconduct. I find that firms are more likely to engage in misconduct in subsidizing states, but not in other states that they operate in, after receiving state subsidies. Using data on both federal and state enforcement actions, and exploiting the legal principle of dual sovereignty for identification, I show that this finding reflects an increase in the underlying rate of misconduct and that this increase is attributable to lenient state-level misconduct enforcement. Collectively, my findings present evidence of an important consequence of targeted firm-specific subsidies: nonfinancial misconduct that potentially could impact the very stakeholders subsidies are ostensibly intended to benefit.

中文翻译：

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政府补贴和企业不当行为


我研究了接受美国州级定向补贴的公司是否更有可能随后从事企业不当行为。我发现，在接受国家补贴后，企业更有可能在补贴州从事不当行为，但在其经营所在的其他州却不会。使用联邦和州执法行动的数据，并利用双重主权的法律原则进行识别，我表明这一发现反映了潜在的不当行为率的增加，而这种增加可归因于宽松的州级不当行为执法。总的来说，我的研究结果证明了针对特定公司的补贴的一个重要后果：可能影响利益相关者的非财务不当行为，补贴表面上是为了受益。