The Impact of Corporate Environmental Violation on Shareholders' Wealth: a Perspective Taken from Media Coverage

Abstract This study provides empirical evidence of the way in which media coverage of corporate environmental violation events affects shareholders' wealth due to stock market reactions. Data relating to the media coverage of the environmental violations of 173 publically traded companies in China, gathered using web crawler technology, were analyzed through multi‐dimensional variables with the purpose of examining the impact of media coverage on stock market reactions in terms of cumulative abnormal return (CAR) under different event windows based on the methodology of event study. The variables include the intensity of media coverage, media information sources, disclosure mode, media newsworthiness, violation entity, whether the company is punished by the government, whether the company makes a clarification and whether the company is ISO 14001 certified. The results obtained reveal that media coverage affects the market values of the event companies to some extent, and that those companies that attract high levels of media attention generally see greater losses in their shareholders' wealth. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.