Do investors value job information? Evidence from employee welfare policy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Given the global trend of increasing efforts to improve employee wellness and transparency at the workplace, this study is motivated to investigate whether and how investors value job information disclosure. Based on the sample of Japanese listed firms, we find that the abnormal returns around the job information announcement date are higher in firms that disclose more information in terms of employee welfare policy. Robustness tests indicate that our empirical inference is not driven by alternative measurements and unobserved confounding variables. In addition, cross-sectional analyses show that this effect is more pronounced in firms with higher capital intensity and income per employee. Overall, our empirical findings are consistent with the inference that, following the rise of stakeholder capitalism, investors do value responsible employee investment as such investment gains employee trust.