The Value of Connections in Turbulent Times: Evidence from the United States

We thank Isil Erel, Taylor Nadauld, and René Stulz for sharing data. For helpful comments we thank Josh Angrist, Caroline Hoxby, Suresh Naidu, Francesco Trebbi, and people who provided comments during or after our talks at MIT, Northwestern, Harvard Business School, the International Monetary Fund, the University of Alberta, BYU, Yale, the University of California at Berkeley, and the 2012 Econometric Society meetings. We are also grateful for constructive suggestions from some former officials. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.