IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v53y2023ics1544612322007644.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do data breach disclosure laws matter to shareholder risk?

Author

Listed:
  • Elmawazini, Khaled
  • Saadi, Samir
  • Sassi, Syrine
  • Khiyar, Khiyar Abdalla
  • Ali, Mohammed

Abstract

This paper examines whether and how data breach disclosure laws influence shareholder risk, which we measure by the firm's cost of equity capital. Exploiting a series of natural experiments regarding staggered state‐level data breach disclosure laws in the U.S., we find that the passage of mandatory disclosure laws leads to a decrease in the cost of equity. Accordingly, our key result suggests that shareholders perceive data breach disclosure laws as a risk-decreasing factor. Our finding is insensitive to alternative estimation methods, the choice cost of equity capital measures, and potential endogeneity concerns.

Suggested Citation

  • Elmawazini, Khaled & Saadi, Samir & Sassi, Syrine & Khiyar, Khiyar Abdalla & Ali, Mohammed, 2023. "Do data breach disclosure laws matter to shareholder risk?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:53:y:2023:i:c:s1544612322007644
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2022.103588
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612322007644
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2022.103588?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. Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Yang Ni & Jeffrey Pittman & Samir Saadi, 2013. "Does Information Asymmetry Matter to Equity Pricing? Evidence from Firms’ Geographic Location," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 140-181, March.
    2. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is it an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 139-161.
    3. Syrine Sassi & Samir Saadi & Sabri Boubaker & Lamia Chourou, 2019. "External Governance And The Cost Of Equity Financing," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 42(4), pages 817-865, December.
    4. Edwin J. Elton, 1999. "Presidential Address: Expected Return, Realized Return, and Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1199-1220, August.
    5. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    6. Li, Yan & Ng, David T. & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 2013. "Predicting market returns using aggregate implied cost of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 419-436.
    7. Ferris, Stephen P. & Javakhadze, David & Rajkovic, Tijana, 2017. "The international effect of managerial social capital on the cost of equity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 69-84.
    8. James Claus & Jacob Thomas, 2001. "Equity Premia as Low as Three Percent? Evidence from Analysts' Earnings Forecasts for Domestic and International Stock Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1629-1666, October.
    9. Iyer, Subramanian R. & Simkins, Betty J. & Wang, Heng, 2020. "Cyberattacks and impact on bond valuation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    10. William R. Gebhardt & Charles M. C. Lee & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2001. "Toward an Implied Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 135-176, June.
    11. Ding, Xiaoya (Sara) & Ni, Yang & Rahman, Abdul & Saadi, Samir, 2015. "Housing price growth and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 283-300.
    12. Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2006. "International Differences in the Cost of Equity Capital: Do Legal Institutions and Securities Regulation Matter?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 485-531, June.
    13. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    14. Lee, Charles & Ng, David & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 2009. "Testing International Asset Pricing Models Using Implied Costs of Capital," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(2), pages 307-335, April.
    15. Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir & Boubaker, Sabri & Ding, Xiaoya (Sara), 2021. "Annual report readability and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    16. Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Yang Ni & Jeffrey Pittman & Samir Saadi, 2012. "Does Religion Matter to Equity Pricing?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(4), pages 491-518, December.
    17. Eli Amir & Shai Levi & Tsafrir Livne, 2018. "Do firms underreport information on cyber-attacks? Evidence from capital markets," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1177-1206, September.
    18. Wang, Heng Emily & Wang, Qin Emma & Wu, Wentao, 2022. "Short selling surrounding data breach announcements," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    19. Ben Hmiden, Oussama & Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir, 2022. "Competition through environmental CSR engagement and cost of equity capital," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    20. An, Jiafu & Duan, Tinghua & Hou, Wenxuan & Liu, Xianda, 2021. "Cyber risks and initial coin offerings: Evidence from the world," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    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. Amairi, Haifa & Gallali, Mohamed Imen & Sassi, Syrine, 2022. "Market pressure and cost of equity: Revisited," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    2. Elmawazini, Khaled & Chkir, Imed & Mrad, Fatma & Rjiba, Hatem, 2022. "Does green technology innovation matter to the cost of equity capital?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Ben Hmiden, Oussama & Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir, 2022. "Competition through environmental CSR engagement and cost of equity capital," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    4. Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir & Boubaker, Sabri & Ding, Xiaoya (Sara), 2021. "Annual report readability and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Hou, Kewei & van Dijk, Mathijs A. & Zhang, Yinglei, 2012. "The implied cost of capital: A new approach," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 504-526.
    6. Shen, Carl Hsin-han & Zhang, Hao, 2020. "What's good for you is good for me: The effect of CEO inside debt on the cost of equity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Kartick Gupta, 2018. "Environmental Sustainability and Implied Cost of Equity: International Evidence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 343-365, January.
    8. Luong, Thanh Son & Qiu, Buhui & Wu, Yi (Ava), 2021. "Does it pay to be socially connected with wall street brokerages? Evidence from cost of equity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    9. Patrick Bielstein & Mario Fischer & Christoph Kaserer, 2018. "The cost of capital effect of M&A transactions: Disentangling coinsurance from the diversification discount," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(4), pages 650-679, September.
    10. Patrick Bielstein & Matthias X. Hanauer, 2019. "Mean-variance optimization using forward-looking return estimates," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 815-840, April.
    11. El Ghoul, Sadok & Fu, Zhengwei & Guedhami, Omrane & Saadi, Samir, 2023. "Firm inflexibility and the implied cost of equity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    12. Abdullah Mamun & Dev Mishra, 2012. "Industry Merger Intensity and Cost of Capital," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 469-490, December.
    13. Jäckel, Christoph, 2013. "Model uncertainty and expected return proxies," MPRA Paper 51978, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Barth, Mary E. & Konchitchki, Yaniv & Landsman, Wayne R., 2013. "Cost of capital and earnings transparency," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 206-224.
    15. Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2017. "Liquidity and the implied cost of equity capital," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 15-38.
    16. Hernán Ortiz-Molina & Gordon M. Phillips, 2010. "Asset Liquidity and the Cost of Capital," NBER Working Papers 15992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Pham, Anh Viet, 2019. "Political risk and cost of equity: The mediating role of political connections," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 64-87.
    18. Echterling, F. & Eierle, B. & Ketterer, S., 2015. "A review of the literature on methods of computing the implied cost of capital," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 235-252.
    19. Patrick Bielstein, 2018. "International asset allocation using the market implied cost of capital," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 32(1), pages 17-51, February.
    20. Pengguo Wang, 2018. "Future Realized Return, Firm‐specific Risk and the Implied Expected Return," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(1), pages 105-132, March.

    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:finlet:v:53:y:2023:i:c:s1544612322007644. 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/frl .

    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.