Sukrit Puri on the Entanglement between Business and Politics in India

Oct 3, 2024

Sukrit Puri, a PhD candidate in political science at MIT and Elinor Ostrom fellow, dives into the entanglement of business and politics in India. He discusses how family-run firms differ from management-led businesses in their political engagement and strategic decisions. The conversation highlights the unique relationships family firms maintain with political entities, revealing distinctions in political donations and the impact of new electoral financing schemes. Puri sheds light on the broader implications of these dynamics for corporate responsibility and market behavior.

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Intro

00:00 • 3min

Family Businesses and Political Loyalties in India

02:45 • 12min

Politics and Philanthropy in India

14:50 • 5min

Political Donations and Business Dynamics in India

19:38 • 18min

Corporate Transparency and Political Donations in India

37:09 • 12min

The Dynamics of Retail vs Institutional Investors and Media Influence

48:46 • 2min

Judicial Uncertainty and Market Reactions in Political Scandals

51:04 • 3min

Exploring Quantitative Methods in Stock Price Analysis

53:35 • 4min

Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app.

This is the 2024 job market series where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about the latest research in India.

I spoke with Sukrit Puri, who is a PhD candidate in political science at MIT and an Elinor Ostrom fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research focus is on the entanglement between business and politics in emerging economies, and his dissertation focuses on family firms in India. We discussed his job market paper, Corporate Kinship: Political Attachments of the Family Firm, we talked about how family firms differ from management and expert run businesses in India, whether it is in their firm structure or their political giving, whether family firms are most strategic or expressive in politics, the differences in the nature of the quid pro quo for a family firm versus a management run firm, the latest electoral bond scheme, and much more.

Recorded September 11th, 2024.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Connect with Ideas of India

Follow Shruti on X

Follow Sukrit on X

Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:16) - Grand Tamasha

(00:03:05) - Analyzing Family-Run Firms and Campaign Donations

(00:07:06) - How Family Businesses Donate Politically in Relation to Corporations and Individuals

(00:10:17) - Distinctions Between Family-Run and Non-Family-Run Firms

(00:14:48) - Political Donations and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Overlap or Distinct Strategies?

(00:19:35) - The Hidden Side of Campaign Contributions

(00:25:56) - Ethnic Identity in Relation to Expressive Giving

(00:28:59) - Challenges in Measuring Quid Pro Quo Arrangements

(00:35:55) - The Impact of Demonetization on Political Donations

(00:37:06) - Assessing the Reaction to the Information Shock from Mandated Disclosures

(00:45:22) - Understanding the Reputational Impact of Political Donations

(00:51:15) - Is Uncertainty a Factor?

(00:57:11) - Outro