IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmfpp/v3y2007i4p338-359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of indemnification agreements and legal liability in railroad disasters

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas J. Walker
  • Dolruedee Thiengtham
  • Onem Ozocak
  • Sergey S. Barabanov

Abstract

Purpose - The study aims to examine the stock price performance of publicly owned railroad companies following severe railroad accidents that resulted in the loss of human lives and/or hazardous material spills. The focus is on legal liability considerations as one of the primary factors that drives a firm's abnormal performance following a given accident. Design/methodology/approach - This paper employs a sample of 97 railroad accidents that occurred between January 1967 and December 2006 and involved equipment (tracks and/or locomotives) owned by publicly traded US and Canadian railroad companies. The stock price reaction of the affected firms is examined following these disasters and a series of univariate and multivariate tests is used to investigate whether differences in abnormal returns following a given accident can be related to various factors that characterize the affected firm or the accident it was involved in. Findings - The results suggest that legal liability considerations are one of the primary factors that determine a company's stock price reaction following a railroad disaster. Specifically, it is observed that firms that are likely to be sued in connection with an accident tend to incur larger stock price losses. On the other hand, it is found that firms that are protected through indemnification agreements suffer only insignificant price declines, even if initial accident reports hold them responsible for causing the accident. Originality/value - The paper extends the prior literature on the stock market's reaction to firm‐specific catastrophic events. While there are a number of studies that examine the financial consequences of aviation disasters, there is to the authors' knowledge only one prior study that performs a similar analysis for railroad accidents.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas J. Walker & Dolruedee Thiengtham & Onem Ozocak & Sergey S. Barabanov, 2007. "The role of indemnification agreements and legal liability in railroad disasters," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 3(4), pages 338-359, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmfpp:v:3:y:2007:i:4:p:338-359
    DOI: 10.1108/17439130710824352
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17439130710824352/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17439130710824352/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/17439130710824352?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walker, Thomas J. & Pukthuanthong, Kuntara & Barabanov, Sergey S., 2006. "On the Stock Market’s Reaction to Major Railroad Accidents," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 45(1).
    2. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    3. Borenstein, Severin & Zimmerman, Martin B, 1988. "Market Incentives for Safe Commercial Airline Operation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 913-935, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carpentier, Cécile & Suret, Jean-Marc, 2015. "Stock market and deterrence effect: A mid-run analysis of major environmental and non-environmental accidents," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-18.
    2. Fafaliou, Irene & Giaka, Maria & Konstantios, Dimitrios & Polemis, Michael, 2020. "Firms’ Sustainability Performance and Market Longevity," MPRA Paper 101445, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Auer, Benjamin R., 2013. "Can habit formation under complete market integration explain the cross-section of international equity risk premia?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 61-67.
    4. Chilosi, Alberto & Damiani, Mirella, 2007. "Stakeholders vs. shareholders in corporate governance," MPRA Paper 2334, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Pradosh Simlai, 2009. "Stock returns, size, and book‐to‐market equity," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 198-212, July.
    6. Muhammad Akbar & Shahid Ali, 2010. "A Test Of The Validity Of The CAPM In Pakistani Equity Market," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 2(1), pages 23-28, April.
    7. Wu, Jianhong, 2019. "Detecting irrelevant variables in possible proxies for the latent factors in macroeconomics and finance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 60-63.
    8. Emmett, Ross B. & Grabowski, Jesse, 2022. "Better lucky than good: The Simon-Ehrlich bet through the lens of financial economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    9. Shabir, Mohsin & Jiang, Ping & Shahab, Yasir & Wang, Wenhao & Işık, Özcan & Mehroush, Iqra, 2024. "Diversification and bank stability: Role of political instability and climate risk," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 63-92.
    10. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "Factor volatility spillover and its implications on factor premia," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2008. "Behavioural Finance: A Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(1), pages 12-29, January.
    12. Ho, Ron Yiu-wah & Strange, Roger & Piesse, Jenifer, 2006. "On the conditional pricing effects of beta, size, and book-to-market equity in the Hong Kong market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 199-214, July.
    13. Arouri, Mohamed & Teulon, Frédéric & Rault, Christophe, 2013. "Equity risk premium and regional integration," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 79-85.
    14. Roger P. Bey, 1983. "The Market Model As An Appropriate Description Of The Stochastic Process Generating Security Returns," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 6(4), pages 275-288, December.
    15. Mr. Shaun K. Roache, 2008. "Commodities and the Market Price of Risk," IMF Working Papers 2008/221, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Muhammad Kashif & Thomas Leirvik, 2022. "The MAX Effect in an Oil Exporting Country: The Case of Norway," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, March.
    17. Brushwood, James & Dhaliwal, Dan & Fairhurst, Douglas & Serfling, Matthew, 2016. "Property crime, earnings variability, and the cost of capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 142-173.
    18. Segnon, Mawuli & Gupta, Rangan & Wilfling, Bernd, 2024. "Forecasting stock market volatility with regime-switching GARCH-MIDAS: The role of geopolitical risks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 29-43.
    19. Dirk Höring & Helmut Gründl & Sebastian Schlütter, 2016. "Impediments to Communication in Financial Institutions: Implications for the Risk Management Organization," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 41(2), pages 193-224, September.
    20. Michel Fliess & Cédric Join, 2009. "Systematic risk analysis: first steps towards a new definition of beta," Post-Print inria-00425077, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijmfpp:v:3:y:2007:i:4:p:338-359. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.