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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Thrilled to present at the World Bank Land Conference last week! An amazing conference with scholars and practitioners with deep expertise, fostering unique synergies. Bonus: an inspiring keynote by @dacemoglumit.bsky.social !

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

It was a true pleasure to present my work at @pdri-devlab.bsky.social at @upenn.edu last week. Also enjoyed the chance to be a bit of a flâneur around Philadelphia again!

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

‼️New article‼️ in @promarket.bsky.social on new research with @pablo-pinto.bsky.social and Agustin Vallejo. We study how social context—specifically ethnic diversity—shapes cooperation after natural disasters, using Hurricane Harvey as a case study. Summary: www.promarket.org/2026/02/27/h...

promarket.org

How Diversity Shapes Cooperation After Natural Disasters - ProMarket

In recent research, Pablo Balán, Agustín Vallejo, and Pablo M. Pinto examine how diversity affects cooperation between neighbors after a natural disaster. They find that more diverse neighborhoods wer...

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

It was a real pleasure to present my work this week at the Center for Study of Public Choice at @georgemasonu.bsky.social. Many thanks to @markkoyama.bsky.social @jonathanschulz.bsky.social and @vincentgeloso.bsky.social for the kind invitation and great discussion! publicchoice.gmu.edu/events/17530

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

The paper might be of interest to students of corporate power and family firms (@danielascur.bsky.social @spachibeusa.bsky.social) and to students of kinship and politics @nathannunn.bsky.social @jonathanschulz.bsky.social @yuhuawang.bsky.social @juanfeliperiano.bsky.social ) 17/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Overall, the paper tries to translate insights from multiple fields on how kinship promotes cooperation into political economy (strategic setting + micro-foundations + causal identification) to study how capitalism works in many parts of the world, and how "the state" and "society" interact. 16/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Family ties can also be a source of institutional weakness—the gap between policy goals and outcomes. They deflect policies like campaign finance reform, leading to unintended consequences. This is a growing research area, but we’re only beginning to understand these interactions. 15/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

All this suggests we should see family firms as *kinship-based economic institutions*. Their political power stems from family ties—a fundamental source of corporate power. This helps explain their political activism and resilience in the face of shocks. 14/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

To be clear, we trace the political advantage of family firms *to the level of family ties*, above and beyond any other possible confounders. We also show *when* family networks and familial collective action are activated. 13/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

To our knowledge, this is the first paper to show how family ties solve a high-stakes cooperation problem in a contemporary setting, not just historically or in small-scale societies, but in large corporations facing strategic dilemmas. Kinship in action! 12/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Is this really driven by family ties? This is a bit tricky—individuals belong to multiple networks. We reconstructed alternative networks—same firm, same university—and even simulated random ties. But this pattern doesn’t appear there: not all social ties are the same. 11/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Crucially, the ban activated cooperation among family members: we find evidence of influence (“peer effects”) in their contribution decisions. It altered the social logic of contributions, turning them into strategic complements. 10/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Zooming in on individuals, using data on over 12K businesspeople, members of controlling families started contributing as private citizens after the ban. This behavior was driven by those in firms that had made corporate contributions before the ban. 9/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Yes—and here’s how. Family firms replaced corporate contributions with individual ones, while non-family firms didn’t. This result holds across a rich set of controls, including ownership concentration. 8/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Kinship ties may help solve this problem. Across disciplines, evidence shows family ties foster cooperation: providing informal insurance, promoting exchange and supporting public goods. Kinship also affects development and institutions.But can it solve high-stakes cooperation in corporations? 7/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

To understand what happened, we need to see how these policies interact with organizations. If contributions raise firm value, they’re a collective good. When corporate donations were banned, individuals had to decide whether to contribute, creating a classic free-riding problem. 6/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

But this isn’t the whole story. In our @thejop.bsky.social paper, we uncover a hidden side of the puzzle: how family firms overcome negative shocks. In Brazil, the Supreme Court banned corporate contributions after the Car Wash Scandal. Will family firms keep their political edge after the ban? 5/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

In our World Development paper, we showed that family firms can craft long-term relational contracts with politicians thanks to their long time horizons. This turns them into political heavyweights: more likely to fund political campaigns and extract rents: doi.org/10.1016/j.wo... 4/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Family firms are less productive but also long-lived and a staple of capitalism in developing countries. Why? The answer to this puzzle may lie in politics. We identify two mechanisms that may explain family firms’ political behavior: *long time horizons* and *collective action capacity*. 3/n

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Market economies are embedded in social institutions. In this project, we try to illuminate a long-standing feature of capitalism in the Global South and elsewhere—the prevalence of family-based capitalism. Project summary @promarket.bsky.social: www.promarket.org/2023/07/24/f...

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Pablo Balan @pablobalan.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

🚨Thrilled🚨 that my paper "Family Ties as Corporate Power" (with @jdodyk.bsky.social and I. Puente) is now available as "just accepted" at the @thejop.bsky.social . Working Paper: doi.org/10.1086/736563

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