The impacts of money in US politics have long been debated. Building on principal-agent models, we test whether and to what degree companies’ political donations lead to their favoured treatment in federal procurement. We expect the impact of donations on favouritism to vary by the strength of control by political principals over their bureaucratic agents. We compile a comprehensive dataset of published federal contracts and registered campaign contributions for 2004-2015. We develop risk indices capturing tendering practices and outcomes likely characterised by favouritism. Using fixed effects regressions, matching, and regression discontinuity analyses, we find confirming evidence for our theory. A large increase in donations from 10,000 USD to 5 million USD increases favouritism risks by about 1/4th standard deviation. These effects are largely partisan, with firms donating to the party that holds the presidency showing higher risk. Donations influence favouritism risks most in less independent agencies: the same donation increases the risk of favouritism by an additional 1/3rd standard deviation in agencies least insulated from politics. Exploiting sign-off thresholds, we demonstrate that donating contractors are subject to less scrutiny by political appointees.

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美国联邦政府合同中的机构独立性、竞选捐款和偏袒

长期以来，金钱对美国政治的影响一直存在争议。基于委托代理模型，我们测试公司的政治捐款是否以及在多大程度上导致他们在联邦采购中受到青睐。我们预计捐赠对偏袒的影响会因政治负责人对其官僚代理人的控制力度而有所不同。我们汇编了 2004-2015 年已发布的联邦合同和登记的竞选捐款的综合数据集。我们制定风险指数，以捕捉可能以偏袒为特征的招标实践和结果。使用固定效应回归、匹配和回归不连续性分析，我们为我们的理论找到了确凿的证据。捐款从 10,000 美元大幅增加到 500 万美元会使偏爱风险增加约 1/4 标准差。这些影响在很大程度上是党派的，公司向担任总统的政党捐款显示出更高的风险。在独立性较低的机构中，捐款对偏袒风险的影响最大：在与政治隔绝程度最低的机构中，同样的捐款会使偏袒风险增加 1/3 标准差。利用签字门槛，我们证明捐赠承包商受到政治任命者的审查较少。