Whose Bailout Is It Anyway? The Roles of Politics in PPP Bailouts of Small Businesses vs. Banks

We address whether politics played important roles in allocating Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) bailout funds, and whether PPP allocations effectively bailed out small businesses and/or banks. Our econometric evidence suggests that politicians/other government agents at national and local levels effectively steered PPP funds toward small businesses and banks based on their locations to try to influence election outcomes. We also uncover evidence that some PPP funds were effectively allocated by lobbying efforts of certain banks. Findings are confirmed by a novel mediation analysis and numerous robustness checks. We also find banks profited from PPP through multiple channels, adding to extant findings, and suggesting that PPP may have effectively bailed out banks as well as small businesses, but through different political influences.