An analysis of the stock market reaction to the announcements of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy
研究了2016年英国软饮料行业税公告对四家伦敦上市软饮料公司股票收益的影响,发现公告当天三家出现负异常收益,但负面反应短暂,后续立法和税率确认影响有限。
On 16th March 2016, the government of the United Kingdom announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), under which UK soft-drink manufacturers were to be taxed according to the volume of products with added sugar they produced or imported. We use ‘event study’ methodology to assess the likely financial effect of the SDIL on parts of the soft drinks industry, using stock returns of four UK-operating soft-drink firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We found that three of the four firms experienced negative abnormal stock returns on the day of announcement. A cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cumulative abnormal returns of soft drink stocks were not significantly less than that of other food and drinks-related stocks beyond the day of the SDIL announcement. Our findings suggest that the SDIL announcement was initially perceived as detrimental news by the market but negative stock returns were short-lived, indicating a lack of major concerns for industry. There was limited evidence of a negative stock market reaction to the two subsequent announcements: release of draft legislation on 5th December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8th March 2017.