Acemoglu and Robinson write,

the excess returns of connected firms may be a reflection of the perception of the market (and likely a correct perception) that during turbulent times there will be both heightened policy discretion and even more of the natural tendency of government officials and politicians to rely on the advice of a small network of confidants. For Timothy Geithner this meant relying on, and appointing to powerful positions, financial executives from the firms he was connected to and felt comfortable with. But then, there is no guarantee that these people would not give advice favoring their firms, knowingly or perhaps subconsciously (for example, they may be under the grips of a worldview that increases the perceived importance of their firm’s survival for the health of the US economy).

This refers to an “event study” that looks at how the prices of different financial firms responded to the announcement that Timothy Geithner would be Treasury Secretary. Pointer from Mark Thoma.

I tend to discount event studies. For one thing, I suspect that there is a lot of “survivor bias” in that event studies that fail to lead to results that show something the authors want to show probably never see the light of day. But I happen to agree with the hypothesis that financial regulators are subject to cognitive capture by the large financial firms.