Faculty of Public Health & Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom.
Faculty of Public Health & Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom.
Econ Hum Biol. 2020 Aug;38:100834. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100834. Epub 2020 Feb 17.
On 16 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 5 December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8 March 2017.
2016 年 3 月 16 日，英国政府宣布软饮料行业征税计划（SDIL），根据该计划，英国软饮料制造商将根据其生产或进口的含糖产品的数量征税。我们使用“事件研究”方法来评估 SDIL 对软饮料行业部分领域的潜在财务影响，使用在伦敦证券交易所上市的四家英国运营软饮料公司的股票回报数据。我们发现，在宣布日，四家公司中有三家的异常股票回报为负。横截面分析表明，SDIL 宣布日之后，软饮料类股的累计异常回报率并不明显低于其他食品和饮料相关类股。我们的研究结果表明，SDIL 宣布最初被市场视为不利消息，但负面的股票回报是短暂的，这表明行业对此缺乏重大担忧。随后两次宣布消息——2016 年 12 月 5 日发布立法草案和 2017 年 3 月 8 日确认税率——对股市的负面反应有限。
