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Regulatory Sanctions and Reputational Damage in Financial Markets

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  • Armour, John
  • Mayer, Colin
  • Polo, Andrea

Abstract

We study the impact of the announcement of enforcement of financial and securities regulation by the UK’s Financial Services Authority and London Stock Exchange on the market price of penalized firms. Since these agencies do not announce enforcement until a penalty is levied, their actions provide a uniquely clean dataset on which to examine reputational effects. We find that reputational sanctions are very real: their stock price impact is on average ten times larger than the financial penalties imposed. Furthermore, reputational losses are confined to misconduct that directly affects parties who trade with the firm (such as customers and investors). The announcement of a fine for wrongdoing that harms third parties has, if anything, a weakly positive effect on stock prices. Our results have significant implications for understanding both corporate reputation and regulatory policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Armour, John & Mayer, Colin & Polo, Andrea, 2010. "Regulatory Sanctions and Reputational Damage in Financial Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 8058, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8058
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    Cited by:

    1. Xi Li & Amir N. Licht & Christopher Poliquin & Jordan I. Siegel, 2015. "What Makes the Bonding Stick? A Natural Experiment Involving the U.S. Supreme Court and Cross-Listed Firms," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2015-19, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Mar 2015.
    2. Ho-Mou Wu & Yue Zhao, 2016. "Optimal Leverage Ratio and Capital Requirements with Limited Regulatory Power," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(6), pages 2125-2150.
    3. Thierry Kirat & Amir Rezaee, 2015. "Do financial markets react to regulatory sanctions? Evidence from France," Post-Print hal-01520528, HAL.
    4. Bruno Deffains & Claude Fluet, 2020. "Social Norms and Legal Design," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 139-169.
    5. Laure, de Batz, 2020. "Financial crime spillovers. Does one gain to be avenged?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 196-215.
    6. Brady, Jacob & Evans, Mary F. & Wehrly, Eric W., 2019. "Reputational penalties for environmental violations: A pure and scientific replication study," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 60-72.
    7. Dan Amiram & Zahn Bozanic & James D. Cox & Quentin Dupont & Jonathan M. Karpoff & Richard Sloan, 2018. "Financial reporting fraud and other forms of misconduct: a multidisciplinary review of the literature," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 732-783, June.
    8. Wang, Yang & Ashton, John K. & Jaafar, Aziz, 2019. "Money shouts! How effective are punishments for accounting fraud?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    9. Francesco D'Acunto & Michael Weber & Jin Xie & Michael Weber, 2019. "Punish One, Teach A Hundred: The Sobering Effect of Punishment on the Unpunished," CESifo Working Paper Series 7512, CESifo.
    10. Götz, Martin R. & Tröger, Tobias H., 2017. "Fines for misconduct in the banking sector: What is the situation in the EU?," SAFE White Paper Series 47, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    11. Tetyana Balyuk & Nagpurnanand R. Prabhala & Manju Puri, 2020. "Indirect Costs of Government Aid and Intermediary Supply Effects: Lessons From the Paycheck Protection Program," NBER Working Papers 28114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Laure de Batz, 2018. "Financial Impact of Regulatory Sanctions on French Listed Companies," Working Papers IES 2018/10, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Apr 2018.
    13. Eren Kurshan & Hongda Shen & Jiahao Chen, 2020. "Towards Self-Regulating AI: Challenges and Opportunities of AI Model Governance in Financial Services," Papers 2010.04827, arXiv.org.
    14. Edward M. Iacobucci, 2014. "On the Interaction between Legal and Reputational Sanctions," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 189-207.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15152 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Licht, Amir N. & Poliquin, Christopher & Siegel, Jordan I. & Li, Xi, 2018. "What makes the bonding stick? A natural experiment testing the legal bonding hypothesis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 329-356.
    17. Laure Batz, 2020. "Financial impact of regulatory sanctions on listed companies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 301-337, April.
    18. Mariuzzo, Franco & Ormosi, Peter L & Majied, Zherou, 2020. "Fines and reputational sanctions: The case of cartels," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    19. Xu, Wenming & Xu, Guangdong, 2020. "Understanding public enforcement of securities law in China: An empirical analysis of the enforcement actions of the CSRC and its regional offices against informational misconduct," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    20. Qian Tang & Andrew B. Whinston, 2020. "Do Reputational Sanctions Deter Negligence in Information Security Management? A Field Quasi‐Experiment," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(2), pages 410-427, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate Law; Enforcement; Regulation; Reputation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

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