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Is Stock Index Membership for Sale?

Author

Listed:
  • Kun Li
  • Xin (Kelly) Liu
  • Shang-Jin Wei

Abstract

While major stock market indices are followed by large monetary investments, we document that membership decisions for S&P 500 have a nontrivial amount of discretion. We show that firms’ purchases of S&P ratings appear to improve their chance of entering the index (but purchases of Moody’s ratings do not). Furthermore, firms tend to purchase more S&P ratings when there are openings in the index membership. Such a pattern is also confirmed by an event study that explores a rule change on index membership in 2002. Finally, discretionary additions exhibit subsequent deterioration in financial performance relative to rules-based additions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kun Li & Xin (Kelly) Liu & Shang-Jin Wei, 2021. "Is Stock Index Membership for Sale?," NBER Working Papers 29365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29365
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

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