Does Sunlight Kill Germs? Stock Market Listing and Workplace Safety

Claire Liang; Yaxuan Qi; Rengong (Alex) Zhang; Haoran Zhu

doi:10.1017/s0022109022000631

Author(s)

Claire Liang
Yaxuan Qi
Rengong (Alex) Zhang
Haoran Zhu

Related Research Unit(s)

College of Business

Detail(s)

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1645-1674
Journal / Publication	Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Volume	58
Issue number	4
Online published	7 Sept 2022
Publication status	Published - Jun 2023

Link(s)

DOI	DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022109022000631 Final Published version
	Check@CityULib
Attachment(s)	Documents 97187278.pdf Post-print, 402 KB, PDF Publisher's Copyright Statement This article has been published in a revised form in Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022109022000631. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. © The Author(s), 2022.
Link to Scopus	https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85138650409&origin=recordpage
Permanent Link	https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/publications/publication(c858893e-a64f-4605-951b-df4b594023f8).html

Abstract

This study highlights the positive impact of a stock market listing on workplace safety. We find that workplace injuries in publicly listed firms are lower than those in comparable private firms, and this effect relates to heightened monitoring by the media and regulators. The media pays more attention to public firms’ safety issues than to those of private firms, and the reduced media scrutiny due to local newspaper closures leads to greater increases in injuries in public firms. Regulators also monitor public firms more strictly, evidenced by a higher likelihood of nonroutine inspections and larger penalties for detected violations.

© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington