Do investors value high levels of regulation?

It is often taken as axiomatic that investors prefer high levels of regulation. Yet companies have increasingly chosen to list on stock exchanges with lower regulatory requirements. In this paper we analyse whether investors value high regulatory standards for quoted companies. We use the unusual...

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Main Authors: Jenkinson, T, Ramadorai, T
Format: Working paper
Published: University of Oxford 2008
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author Jenkinson, T
Ramadorai, T
author_facet Jenkinson, T
Ramadorai, T
author_sort Jenkinson, T
collection OXFORD
description It is often taken as axiomatic that investors prefer high levels of regulation. Yet companies have increasingly chosen to list on stock exchanges with lower regulatory requirements. In this paper we analyse whether investors value high regulatory standards for quoted companies. We use the unusual regulatory environment observed in London - two alternative regulatory regimes with the same trading technology - to analyse these issues. We focus on 218 firms that chose to switch their trading 'down' from the highly regulated Main market to the lightly regulated AIM market, and 56 firms that moved 'up' to the Main market. Switching firms on average experience down (up) announcement returns of approximately -4% (+5%). However these initial reactions are reversed over several months after the actual switch. Our results suggest that particular investor clienteles exist for the two markets, and that other investors who place little value on the higher regulatory standards become the relevant marginal investors when companies switch to AIM.
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spelling oxford-uuid:4f0f810c-676e-43a7-ae6a-be37a33e70c72022-03-26T16:04:52ZDo investors value high levels of regulation?Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:4f0f810c-676e-43a7-ae6a-be37a33e70c7Bulk import via SwordSymplectic ElementsUniversity of Oxford2008Jenkinson, TRamadorai, TIt is often taken as axiomatic that investors prefer high levels of regulation. Yet companies have increasingly chosen to list on stock exchanges with lower regulatory requirements. In this paper we analyse whether investors value high regulatory standards for quoted companies. We use the unusual regulatory environment observed in London - two alternative regulatory regimes with the same trading technology - to analyse these issues. We focus on 218 firms that chose to switch their trading 'down' from the highly regulated Main market to the lightly regulated AIM market, and 56 firms that moved 'up' to the Main market. Switching firms on average experience down (up) announcement returns of approximately -4% (+5%). However these initial reactions are reversed over several months after the actual switch. Our results suggest that particular investor clienteles exist for the two markets, and that other investors who place little value on the higher regulatory standards become the relevant marginal investors when companies switch to AIM.
spellingShingle Jenkinson, T
Ramadorai, T
Do investors value high levels of regulation?
title Do investors value high levels of regulation?
title_full Do investors value high levels of regulation?
title_fullStr Do investors value high levels of regulation?
title_full_unstemmed Do investors value high levels of regulation?
title_short Do investors value high levels of regulation?
title_sort do investors value high levels of regulation
work_keys_str_mv AT jenkinsont doinvestorsvaluehighlevelsofregulation
AT ramadorait doinvestorsvaluehighlevelsofregulation