IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v35y2016icp25-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Air pollution and stock returns: Evidence from a natural experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Lepori, Gabriele M.

Abstract

Previous studies have documented the existence of a relationship between air pollution and people's moods and between people's moods and stock returns. To investigate if the link between local air pollution and domestic equity returns is mediated by the trading floor community, we use the transition of Italy's main stock exchange from a trading floor technology to an electronic and delocalized trading system as a natural experiment. In addition, we take advantage of differences in trading technology across a sample of major international stock exchanges. In both instances, we document the existence of an air pollution effect only when trading is conducted on the floor, which provides evidence in support of the view that the air pollution effect is at least partly mediated by the behavior of the trading floor community.

Suggested Citation

  • Lepori, Gabriele M., 2016. "Air pollution and stock returns: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 25-42.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:35:y:2016:i:c:p:25-42
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2015.10.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539815001061
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2015.10.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cao, Melanie & Wei, Jason, 2005. "Stock market returns: A note on temperature anomaly," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1559-1573, June.
    2. Angel Pardo & Enric Valor, 2003. "Spanish Stock Returns: Where is the Weather Effect?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 117-126, March.
    3. Sofianos, George & Werner, Ingrid M., 2000. "The trades of NYSE floor brokers," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 139-176, May.
    4. Madhavan, Ananth & Smidt, Seymour, 1993. "An Analysis of Changes in Specialist Inventories and Quotations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1595-1628, December.
    5. David Hirshleifer & Tyler Shumway, 2003. "Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1009-1032, June.
    6. William N. Goetzmann & Ning Zhu, 2005. "Rain or Shine: Where is the Weather Effect?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(5), pages 559-578, November.
    7. Levy, Tamir & Yagil, Joseph, 2011. "Air pollution and stock returns in the US," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 374-383, June.
    8. Östblom, Göran & Samakovlis, Eva, 2004. "Costs of Climate Policy when Pollution Affects Health and Labour Productivity. A general Equilibrium Analysis Applied to Sweden," Working Papers 93, National Institute of Economic Research.
    9. Henderson, J Vernon, 1996. "Effects of Air Quality Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 789-813, September.
    10. Mark J. Kamstra & Lisa A. Kramer & Maurice D. Levi, 2003. "Winter Blues: A SAD Stock Market Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 324-343, March.
    11. Thijs Zuidema & Andries Nentjes, 1997. "Health damage of air pollution: An estimate of a dose-response relationship for the Netherlands," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 9(3), pages 291-308, April.
    12. Yuan, Kathy & Zheng, Lu & Zhu, Qiaoqiao, 2006. "Are investors moonstruck? Lunar phases and stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-23, January.
    13. Chang, Tsangyao & Nieh, Chien-Chung & Yang, Ming Jing & Yang, Tse-Yu, 2006. "Are stock market returns related to the weather effects? Empirical evidence from Taiwan," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 364(C), pages 343-354.
    14. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    15. Kliger, Doron & Levy, Ori, 2008. "Mood impacts on probability weighting functions: "Large-gamble" evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1397-1411, August.
    16. Brian M. Lucey & Michael Dowling, 2005. "The Role of Feelings in Investor Decision‐Making," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 211-237, April.
    17. Lucy F. Ackert & Bryan K. Church & Richard Deaves, 2003. "Emotion and financial markets," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 88(Q2), pages 33-41.
    18. George Loewenstein, 2000. "Emotions in Economic Theory and Economic Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 426-432, May.
    19. Wright, William F. & Bower, Gordon H., 1992. "Mood effects on subjective probability assessment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 276-291, July.
    20. Summers, Teresa A. & Hebert, Paulette R., 2001. "Shedding some light on store atmospherics: influence of illumination on consumer behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 145-150, November.
    21. Helga Fehr-Duda & Marc Schürer & Renate Schubert, 2006. "What Determines the Shape of the Probability Weighting Function?," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 06/54, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    22. Newey, Whitney K., 1987. "Efficient estimation of limited dependent variable models with endogenous explanatory variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 231-250, November.
    23. Saunders, Edward M, Jr, 1993. "Stock Prices and Wall Street Weather," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1337-1345, December.
    24. Turley, L. W. & Milliman, Ronald E., 2000. "Atmospheric Effects on Shopping Behavior: A Review of the Experimental Evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 193-211, August.
    25. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1978. "The Estimation of a Simultaneous Equation Generalized Probit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 1193-1205, September.
    26. Dyl, Edward A, 1977. "Capital Gains Taxation and Year-End Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(1), pages 165-175, March.
    27. Kliger, Doron & Levy, Ori, 2003. "Mood-induced variation in risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 573-584, December.
    28. Gibbons, Michael R & Hess, Patrick, 1981. "Day of the Week Effects and Asset Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 579-596, October.
    29. Mittal, Vikas & Ross, William T., 1998. "The Impact of Positive and Negative Affect and Issue Framing on Issue Interpretation and Risk Taking," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 298-324, December.
    30. Anya Krivelyova & Cesare Robotti, 2003. "Playing the field: Geomagnetic storms and international stock markets," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2003-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dimitrios Kourtidis & Željko Šević & Prodromos Chatzoglou, 2016. "Mood and stock returns: evidence from Greece," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(2), pages 242-258, May.
    2. Shu, Hui-Chu, 2010. "Investor mood and financial markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 267-282, November.
    3. Guo, Mengmeng & Wei, Mengxin & Huang, Lin, 2022. "Does air pollution influence investor trading behavior? Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    4. Muhammad Fayyaz Sheikh & Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah & Shahid Mahmood, 2017. "Weather Effects on Stock Returns and Volatility in South Asian Markets," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 24(2), pages 75-107, June.
    5. Kim, Jae H., 2017. "Stock returns and investors' mood: Good day sunshine or spurious correlation?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 94-103.
    6. Kliger, Doron & Kudryavtsev, Andrey, 2013. "Volatility expectations and the reaction to analyst recommendations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-6.
    7. Christos Floros, 2011. "On the relationship between weather and stock market returns," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(1), pages 5-13, March.
    8. Nils Muhlack & Christian Soost & Christian Johannes Henrich, 2022. "Does Weather Still Affect The Stock Market?," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 1-35, March.
    9. Kaustia, Markku & Rantapuska, Elias, 2016. "Does mood affect trading behavior?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-26.
    10. Apergis, Nicholas & Gupta, Rangan, 2017. "Can (unusual) weather conditions in New York predict South African stock returns?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 377-386.
    11. Andrew Worthington, 2009. "An Empirical Note on Weather Effects in the Australian Stock Market," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 28(2), pages 148-154, June.
    12. Gavriilidis, Konstantinos & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Öztürkkal, Belma, 2020. "Does mood affect institutional herding?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    13. Qadan, Mahmoud & Kliger, Doron, 2016. "The short trading day anomaly," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 62-80.
    14. Wu, Qinin & Lu, Jing, 2020. "Air pollution, individual investors, and stock pricing in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 267-287.
    15. Frühwirth, Manfred & Sögner, Leopold, 2015. "Weather and SAD related mood effects on the financial market," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 11-31.
    16. Yoon, Seong-Min & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2009. "Weather effects on returns: Evidence from the Korean stock market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(5), pages 682-690.
    17. Brian Lucey, 2010. "Lunar seasonality in precious metal returns?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(9), pages 835-838.
    18. Waldemar Tarczyński & Urszula Mentel & Grzegorz Mentel & Umer Shahzad, 2021. "The Influence of Investors’ Mood on the Stock Prices: Evidence from Energy Firms in Warsaw Stock Exchange, Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-25, November.
    19. Lepori, Gabriele M., 2015. "Positive mood and investment decisions: Evidence from comedy movie attendance in the U.S," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 142-163.
    20. Matthew Muntifering, 2021. "Air pollution, investor sentiment and excessive returns," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 110-119, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Air pollution; Negative mood; Stock returns; Trading technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:35:y:2016:i:c:p:25-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.