TY - JOUR
T1 - J'Accuse! Antisemitism and financial markets in the time of the Dreyfus Affair
AU - Do, Quoc-Anh
AU - Galbiati, Roberto
AU - Marx, Benjamin
AU - Ortiz Serrano, Miguel A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Philipp Schnabl was the editor for this article. This paper benefited from helpful feedback and suggestions from Philipp Schnabl, an anonymous referee, and Pamfili Antipa, Sascha Becker, Stefano DellaVigna, Michele Fioretti, Ray Fisman, Carola Friedman, Emeric Henry, Kilian Huber, Joel Mokyr, Maria Petrova, Eduardo Perez-Richet, Vincent Pons, Angelo Riva, Mirna Safi, Marc Sangnier, David Sraer, Felipe Valencia, Hans-Joachim Voth, and Noam Yuchtman, as well as seminar participants at the 2021 ASSA annual meeting, Boston University, Collegio Carlo Alberto, INSEAD, Northwestern University, PSE, Université Paris VIII, University of Zurich, and the Virtual Economic History Seminar. Gürcan Gülersoy, Luis Herradón, and Antoine Moutiez provided excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Banque de France and the French National Research Agency (ANR) “Investissements d'Avenir” grants ANR-11-LABX-0091 (LIEPP) and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02. Do thanks the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship at Northwestern University for its generous support. All errors are our own.
Funding Information:
Philipp Schnabl was the editor for this article. This paper benefited from helpful feedback and suggestions from Philipp Schnabl, an anonymous referee, and Pamfili Antipa, Sascha Becker, Stefano DellaVigna, Michele Fioretti, Ray Fisman, Carola Friedman, Emeric Henry, Kilian Huber, Joel Mokyr, Maria Petrova, Eduardo Perez-Richet, Vincent Pons, Angelo Riva, Mirna Safi, Marc Sangnier, David Sraer, Felipe Valencia, Hans-Joachim Voth, and Noam Yuchtman, as well as seminar participants at the 2021 ASSA annual meeting, Boston University, Collegio Carlo Alberto, INSEAD, Northwestern University, PSE, Université Paris VIII, University of Zurich, and the Virtual Economic History Seminar. Gürcan Gülersoy, Luis Herradón, and Antoine Moutiez provided excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Banque de France and the French National Research Agency (ANR) “Investissements d'Avenir” grants ANR-11-LABX-0091 (LIEPP) and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02 . Do thanks the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship at Northwestern University for its generous support. All errors are our own.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s)
PY - 2024/4
Y1 - 2024/4
N2 - We study the stock market performance of firms with Jewish board members during the “Dreyfus Affair” in 19th century France. In a context of widespread latent antisemitism, initial accusations made against the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus led to short-lived abnormal negative returns for Jewish-connected firms. However, investors betting on these firms earned higher returns during the period corresponding to Dreyfus' rehabilitation, starting with the publication of the famous op-ed J'Accuse! in 1898. Our conceptual framework illustrates how diminishing antisemitic biases among investors might plausibly explain these effects. Our paper provides novel insights on how antisemitism can increase and decrease over short periods of time at the highest socio-economic levels in response to certain events, which in turn can affect firm value in financial markets.
AB - We study the stock market performance of firms with Jewish board members during the “Dreyfus Affair” in 19th century France. In a context of widespread latent antisemitism, initial accusations made against the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus led to short-lived abnormal negative returns for Jewish-connected firms. However, investors betting on these firms earned higher returns during the period corresponding to Dreyfus' rehabilitation, starting with the publication of the famous op-ed J'Accuse! in 1898. Our conceptual framework illustrates how diminishing antisemitic biases among investors might plausibly explain these effects. Our paper provides novel insights on how antisemitism can increase and decrease over short periods of time at the highest socio-economic levels in response to certain events, which in turn can affect firm value in financial markets.
KW - Antisemitism
KW - Discrimination
KW - Financial markets
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85186512568
U2 - 10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103809
DO - 10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103809
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85186512568
SN - 0304-405X
VL - 154
JO - Journal of Financial Economics
JF - Journal of Financial Economics
M1 - 103809
ER -