Operational and reputational risk in the European banking industry: The market reaction to operational risk events

Philipp Sturm

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2013, vol. 85, issue C, 191-206

Abstract: In this paper I study the stock market reaction to the announcement of operational losses in European financial companies. Accounting for the effect of the nominal loss amount allows for an examination of the reputational damage caused by operational loss events. The analysis is based on a sample of 136 operational losses stemming from a database of the Association of German Public Sector Banks (Bundesverband öffentlicher Banken, VÖB). All operational loss events affect European financial institutions with settlements reported by the press between January 2000 and December 2009. In line with previous literature, I find a significant negative stock price reaction to the first press announcement of operational losses. Results show that the stock market also reacts negatively to the settlement announcement as losses are confirmed and the loss amount is known. Even after accounting for the nominal loss amount, cumulative abnormal returns are negative following the date of the initial news article and the settlement date indicating damages to the reputation of the firm suffering the operational loss. Multivariate regression results suggest that reputational damages are rather influenced by firm characteristics than characteristics of the operational loss event: companies with a high ratio of liabilities to total assets suffer more severe damages to reputation from operational losses than companies with more equity.

Keywords: Banks; Event study; Operational risk; Reputational risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268112000856
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:85:y:2013:i:c:p:191-206

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.04.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().