Authors : Samuel Wei-Siew Liew, Chin-Hong Puah and Harry Entebang
Abstract: Despite, the move by the government on integrity pledge, a white-collar crime continues to prevail across corporations and organizations in Malaysia. Globally, such a crime remains a serious issue which has undermined the performance of organizations. A share price event study was conducted on a group of public listed companies in Malaysia to examine the announcement effect of white-collar crime on stock return. Stretching from 1996-2010, the study covers both the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98 and the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2008/09. The results indicate the existence of significant negative abnormal share price reaction on 10 trading days subsequent to the day of announcement. This suggests that the stock market in Malaysia is inefficient. It also implies that the market possesses the power to discipline unethical behavior amongst companies when shareholders drive down the stocks’ value by disposing their stocks following the announcement.
Samuel Wei-Siew Liew, Chin-Hong Puah and Harry Entebang, 2016. White Collar Crime and Stock Return: Empirical Study from Announcement Effect. The Social Sciences, 11: 1079-1085.