1、2400单词， 3600汉字 ， 12660英文字符 出处： Ragothaman, Srinivasan Carr, David. The Impact of Environmental Information Disclosures on Shareholder Returns in a Company: An Empirical StudyJ. International Journal of Management, Dec2008, Vol.25 Issue 4, p613-620 原文二 ： The Impact of Environmental Information Disclo
2、sureson Shareholder Returns in a Company: An EmpiricalStudy SrinivasanRagothaman University of South Dakota David Carr University of South Dakota The Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (1986) has mandatedToxic Release Inventory (TRI) disclosures in the United States. This Act require
3、s all manufacturing companies (SIC code 20-39) who employ more than 10 people to providean annual report about the release of more than 300 specified toxic chemicals. Similarlegislation exists in other countries as well. How is this information used by investorsand corporations? We develop and test
4、a regression model to answer this question.We also perform a few robustness tests. Our sample comes from TRI disclosures for“top 100” corporate polluters based on COMPUSTAT data. Descriptive statistics andcorrelation measures are also provided. The higher the return on assets the higher isTobins q (
5、a proxy for firm value or shareholder wealth). The waste disposal variable(toxic air release) is a statistically significant predictor of Tobins q. As expected,the sign of the regression coefficient for waste disposal is negative. In addition, firmsize has a significant impact on Tobins q. A firms b
6、eta, P/E ratio, and the corporategovernance variable are all statistically insignificant. 1. Introduction The disastrous Union Carbide accident that occurred in India in 1984 and other smallerchemical accidents have caused anxiety in the public s mind about the release ofchemicals from factories. Th
7、e Emergency Planning and Community Right to KnowAct (1986) has mandated Toxic Release Inventory TRI disclosures. This Act requiresall manufacturing companies (SIC code 20-39) in the United States who employ morethan 10 people to provide an annual report about release of more than 300 specifiedtoxic
8、chemicals. The TRI program offers environmental performance information tothe public and is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Howis this information used by investors and corporations? EPA s Environmental Economics Research Strategy (EPA, 2004) identifies measuringthe benefi
9、ts of environmental information disclosures as one of its high priority researchareas. Some interesting research results have already been published. For example,Konar and Cohen (1997) report negative stock price reactions to TRI disclosures in1989. These negative stock returns forced companies to c
10、hange their behavior. Thosefirms with the largest negative stock market returns to TRI announcements in 1989subsequently reduced their emissions more than other firms in their industry. Thepurpose this research project is to examine the association between the TRI disclosures and firm value as measu
11、red by Tobin s q. The goal of examining the association betweenthe TRI disclosures and firm value will be accomplished through the development andtesting of a regression model. A few robustness tests are also conducted. Tobin s q isa widely used proxy for firm value in the finance literature (Gomper
12、s, Ishii and Metrick,2003) and is used in this study as the dependent variable. Several researchers have conducted event studies and documented negative stockprice reactions to TRI announcements (Hamilton 1995 and Khanna et al. 1998). Eventstudies examine the stock price reactions on one or two days
13、 when the environmentalinformation is disclosed. Klassen and McLaughlin (1996) also reported significantnegative stock price reactions to bad environmental news such as oil spills. These eventstudies do not analyze longer-term stock price trends. These studies have generally usedsmaller samples. Mor
14、eover, they have used data from 1989 which are eighteen yearsold. To overcome these difficulties, a new regression model is developed which usesmore recent data from 2000 TRI disclosures. The TRI disclosure data is compiled fromraw data reported to the EPA on a facility-by-facility basis and not on
15、acompany-bycompanybasis. The difficulty of aggregating to company-level data makes the 2000TRI disclosures the most recent data currently available. 2. Prior Research Karpoff and Lott (1993) report that when corporate illegal activities and otherfraudulentfinancial schemes are revealed, stock price
16、declines have been the In order toestimate the value of intangible assets, we propose to include performanceinformation among the explanatory variables (see Konar and Cohen Goodenvironmental performance can translate into a good reputation for the firm as anecology-friendly company and this can incr
17、ease investor trust (Ragothaman and Lau,2000).Similarly, bad environmental performance can lead to stock price declines. This research builds on prior research and expands knowledge in several different andnew ways. 1) Data used in this study are more recent (than 1989) and come from TRIdisclosures
18、for the year 2000； 2) Tobin s q is measured in accordance with suggestionsfrom finance scholars； 3) The regression model includes some new variables； and a cross-sectionalregression model is used. Descriptive statistics and correlation measures arealso provided. New insights are gained about the imp
19、act of environmental disclosureprograms on stockholders wealth. Our formulation for Tobin s q follows that of Chungand Pruitt (1994) and Hirschey and Connolly (2005), where q is measured as the marketvalue of common shares outstanding plus the book value of total assets minus commonequity, all divid
20、ed by the book value of total assets. Tobin s q is viewed as a market-basedmeasure of firm valuation. In this paper, the effect of environmental disclosureson the market valuation of firms, proxied by Tobins q, is examined. Beta is a measure of the risk associated with owning shares in a firm and is
21、 commonlyused to measure market risk. Konar and Cohen (1997) utilize beta to control for thesystematic risk in security returns. Beta is included in this study as a control variable.Various measures of firm size appear in the literature. Dowell, Hart, and Young (2000) use the logarithm of total assets with mixed results in examining
