Note(s): This table presents the results of testing the impact of political connections on the relation between political uncertainty and asymmetric behavior of operating costs. We distinguish political connections into two types: ascribed bureaucratic connections (Panel A) and achieved political connections (Panel B). The subscript $t$ denotes the time index, while prefecture-city and firm indices are omitted for brevity. The dependent variable is $ΔlnXOPR,$ the log-change in operating costs. $ΔlnSALE$ is the log-change in sales. $D$ is a dummy variable that takes the value of one if sales decrease, and zero otherwise. $TURNOVER$ is a dummy variable that takes the value of one if either the city head or mayor is changed in year $t$⁠, and zero otherwise. All variables are defined in the Table A1. Regressions control for both firm and year fixed effects. Robust t-statistics reported in parentheses are based on standard errors clustered by firm. In this table, *, **, and *** denote statistical significance at the 10, 5, and 1% levels, respectively