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To explain for doctoral students and new faculty, the appropriate techniques for using event study methods while identifying problems that make the method difficult for use in the context of African markets.

We review the finance and strategy literature on event studies, provide an illustrative example of the technique, summarize the prior use of the method in research using African samples, and indicate remedies for problems encountered when using the technique in African markets.

We find limited use of the technique in African markets due to limited data availability which is attributable to problems of infrequent trading, thin markets, and inadequate access to free data.

Our review of the literature on event studies using African data is limited to English-language journals and sources accessible through our library research databases.

More often, researchers will need to use nonparametric techniques to evaluate market responses for companies in or events affecting the African markets.

We make a contribution with this chapter by giving a more detailed description of event study methods and by identifying solutions to problems in using the technique in African markets.

Economic events and key economic variables affect stock markets on a daily basis. Inflation is one such economic variable that influences share prices to some extent. This article focuses on two SADC countries, South Africa and Namibia, and measures the impact of inflation on share market prices in these countries. It can be concluded from the study that neither South African nor Namibian companies can offer investors a perfect hedge against inflation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) on the risk and returns of listed and delisted property firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The study was investigated to understand the impact of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) property sector charter and effect of government intervention on property listed markets.

The study examines the performance trends of the listed and delisted property firms on the JSE from January 2006 to January 2012. The data were obtained from McGregor BFA database to compute the risk and return measures of the listed and delisted property firms. The study employs a capital asset pricing model (CAPM) to derive the alpha (outperformance) and beta (risk) to examine the trend amongst the BEE and non-BEE firms, Sharpe ratio was also employed as a measurement of performance. A comparative study is employed to analyse the risks and returns between listed property firms that are BEE compliant and BEE non-compliant.

Results show that there exists differences in returns and risk between BEE-compliant firms and non-BEE-compliant firms. The study shows that BEE-compliant firms have higher returns than non-BEE firms and are less risky than non-BEE firms. By establishing this relationship, this possibly affects the investor’s decision to invest in BEE firms rather than non-BBBEE firms. This study can also assist the government in strategically adjusting the policy.

This study employs a CAPM which is a single-factor model. Further study could employ a multi-factor model.

The results of this investigation, with the effects of BEE on returns, using annualized returns, the Sharpe ratio and alpha (outperformance), results show that BEE firms perform better than non-BEE firms. These results pose several implications for investors particularly when structuring their portfolios, further study would need to examine the role of BEE on stock returns in line with other factors that affect stock returns. The results in this study have several implications for government agencies, there may be the need to monitor the effect of the BEE policies on firm returns and re-calibrate policies accordingly.

This study investigates the performance of listed property firms on the JSE which are BEE compliant. This is the first study to investigate listed property firms which are BEE compliant.

This paper aims to test the effects of financial reforms on the structural stability of the parameter estimates in the determinants of capital structure.

A panel of 100 non‐financial companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is constructed, and a panel least squares estimation technique is used to test for lagged, current and leading structural breaks in the firm specific determinants of leverage.

The results show that structural reforms have a significant role in influencing the empirical relationship between leverage and its determinants. Specifically, the lifting of international sanctions and stock market liberalisation have a significant impact on the stability of the profitability, growth and tax rate variables for the book and market values of the debt to equity ratio. Furthermore, when the total and short term debt ratios are considered, only stock market liberalisation appears to have a significant influence on the stability of the profitability parameter.

This paper adds to the existing body of literature on capital structure by documenting the extent of structural breaks in the parameter estimates of the relationship between leverage and firm specific determinants of capital structure for listed non‐financial firms in South Africa.

The authors examine how financial analysts respond to online investor sentiment when updating recommendations for specific stocks in South Africa. The aim is to establish whether online sentiment contains significant information that can influence analyst recommendations. The authors follow up the above by examining when online investor sentiment is most associated with analyst recommendation changes.

For online investor sentiment proxies, the authors make use of the social media sentiment and news media sentiment scores provided by Bloomberg Inc. The sample size includes all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange All Share Index. The study uses traditional ordinary least squares to examine the relation at the mean and quantile regression to identify the scope of the relationship across the distribution of the dependent variable.

The authors find evidence that pre-event news sentiment significantly influences analyst recommendation changes while no significant relationship is found with the Twitter sentiment. Further analysis shows that news sentiment is more influential when the recommendation changes are moderate (in the middle of the conditional distribution of the recommendation changes).

The study is the one of the first to examine the association between online sentiment and analyst recommendation changes in an emerging market using high frequency data. The authors also make a direct comparison between social media sentiment and news media sentiment, some of the most used contemporary investor sentiment proxies.

Utilising a database that distinctly classifies firm-level ESG (environmental, social and governance) news sentiment as positive or negative, the authors examine the information flow between the two types of ESG news sentiment and stock returns for 20 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange between 2015 and 2021.

The authors use Shannonian transfer entropy to examine whether information significantly flows from ESG news sentiment to stock returns and a modified event study analysis to establish how stock prices react to changes in the two types of ESG sentiment.

Using Shannonian transfer entropy, the authors find that for the majority of the companies studied, information flows from the positive ESG news sentiment to stock returns while only a minority of the companies exhibit significant information flow from negative ESG news sentiment to returns. Furthermore, the study’s findings show significantly positive (negative) abnormal returns on the event date and beyond for both upgrades and downgrades in positive ESG news sentiment.

This study is among the first in an African context to investigate the impact of ESG news sentiment on stock market returns at high frequencies.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the macroeconomic environment on South African industrial sector returns.

Using standardized coefficients derived from time-series factor models, the authors quantify the impact of macroeconomic influences on industrial sector returns. The authors analyze the structure of the resultant residual correlation matrices to establish the level of factor omission and apply a factor analytic augmentation to arrive at a specification that is free of omitted common factors.

The authors find that global influences are the most important drivers of returns and that industrial sectors are highly integrated with the global economy. The authors show that specifications that comprise only macroeconomic factors and proxies for omitted factors in the form of residual market factors are likely to be underspecified. This study demonstrates that a factor analytic augmentation is an effective approach to ensuring an adequately specified model.

The findings have a number of implications that are of interest to investors, econometricians and researchers. While the study focusses on a single market, the South African stock market, as represented by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), it is a highly developed and globally integrated market. In terms of market capitalization, it exceeds the Madrid Stock Exchange, the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the BM&F Bovespa. Yet, a limited number of studies investigate the macroeconomic drivers of the South African stock market.

Investors should be aware that while the South African domestic environment, especially political risk, has an impact on returns, global influences are the greatest determinants of returns. No industrial sectors are insulated from global influences and this limits the potential for diversification. This study suggests an alternative set of macroeconomic factors that may be used in further analysis and asset pricing studies. From an econometric perspective, this study demonstrates the usefulness of a factor analytic augmentation as a solution to factor omission in models that use macroeconomic factors to proxy for systematic influences that describe asset prices.

The contribution lies in providing insight into a large and well-developed yet understudied financial market, the South African stock market. This study considers a much broader set of macroeconomic factors than prior studies. A methodological contribution is made by estimating and interpreting standardized coefficients to discriminate between the impact of domestically and internationally driven factors. This study shows that should coefficients not be standardized, inferences relating to the relative importance of factors will differ. Finally, the authors unify an approach of using pre-specified factors with a factor analytic approach to address factor omission and to ensure a valid and readily interpretable specification.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of various determinants at the country level, the industry level, the firm level and the corporate governance (CG) level on the extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the group of developing and developed nations.

The data set comprises 310 companies listed on stock exchanges of developing and developed markets (Brazil – IBrX 100, 42 companies; Russia – Broad Market Index; 48 companies; India – Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 100, 50 companies; China – Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) 180, 27 companies; South Africa – The Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE)/Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) All Share index, 49 companies; the USA – New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) 100, 47 companies; and the UK – London Stock Exchange (LSE) 100, 47 companies). CSR disclosure is measured through CSR disclosure index. Five separate regression models are run to investigate the impact of the factors that affect the extent of CSR disclosure.

The findings reveal that CSR disclosure is influenced by factors both at micro and macro levels. Governance environment, globalization and income inequality are found to be significant determinants of CSR disclosure for developing countries. International listing significantly influences CSR disclosure in the developed countries. The results also exhibit that board with large proportion of independent directors, high presence of CSR committee and environmental sensitive industries are more likely to engage in CSR disclosure practices in developing as well as in developed nations.

This study implicates that varied factors – at country level, industry level, firm level and CG level – need assessment to know their impact differently in countries at different stages of economic development. However, longitudinal study covering longer period would lead to better generalization of results.

The findings of this present study implicate that managers must evaluate country’s political, social and economic forces and not just rely on company-level indicators affecting disclosure. Policymakers in emerging nations must emphasize on improving country governance features to enhance CSR disclosure of companies. Developing countries must respect and conform to rules and regulations while going global. More endeavors should be made to raise awareness about the benefits of CSR disclosure on reducing income inequality among companies listed on stock exchanges of developing countries. Emerging nations should follow developed nations in assuming responsibility toward stakeholders in foreign markets. This study also recommends regulatory bodies in both developing and developed countries to frame stringent policies regarding CG for improving CSR disclosure by companies.

This study overcomes the limitations of prior literature by considering both country- and company-specific determinants in prominent group of developing (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and developed (the USA and the UK) countries.

Opinions have been divided on whether there is a rational explanation to the reason behind seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) or whether the explanation lies within the behavioural intricacies attributed to stock market participants. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study investigates the long-run performance of firms conducting SEOs on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) over the period of 1998–2015, by examining the return performance and operating performance of firms, along with the impact of investor sentiment on these variables.

The results of this study are inconsistent with the existing literature, which argues that the long-run performance of issuing firms signalled an initial underreaction to SEOs buoyed by over-optimistic investors.

Instead, the long-run performance of issuing firms is adequately explained by the rational models centred on the risk-return framework, implying that investors are reacting swiftly to SEOs in an unbiased fashion.

Investor sentiment does not materially influence the long-run share performance or operating performance of issuing firms, casting doubt on the ability of the market timing theory to explain the long-run performance of SEOs. The authors thus find that SEO performance cannot be explained by behavioural-based reasoning, in contrast to some asset pricing studies on the JSE which indicate the role of sentiment in explaining returns.