Political Relations and Media Coverage

Abstract

In this article, we find that poor bilateral political relations between the US and other countries negatively influence US media dissemination toward non-US firms with American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). We also show that US media negativity has downward pressure on ADR firms’ home market prices and such negative impact is reduced during the year when political relations are poor—an indication that investors react to real media bias. We conclude the first study by showing that negative US media coverage leads to a higher likelihood of ADR firms terminating their ADRs.