On 16th March 2016, the government of the United Kingdom announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), under which UK soft-drink manufacturers were to be taxed according to the volume of products with added sugar they produced or imported. We use 'event study' methodology to assess the likely financial effect of the SDIL on parts of the soft drinks industry, using stock returns of four UK-operating soft-drink firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We found that three of the four firms experienced negative abnormal stock returns on the day of announcement. A cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cumulative abnormal returns of soft drink stocks were not significantly less than that of other food and drinks-related stocks beyond the day of the SDIL announcement. Our findings suggest that the SDIL announcement was initially perceived as detrimental news by the market but negative stock returns were short-lived, indicating a lack of major concerns for industry. There was limited evidence of a negative stock market reaction to the two subsequent announcements: release of draft legislation on 5th December 2016, and confirmation of the tax rates on 8th March 2017.

中文翻译：

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股票市场对英国软饮料行业征税公告的反应分析。

2016年3月16日，英国政府宣布了软饮料行业税（SDIL），根据该税，英国软饮料制造商将根据其生产或进口的含糖产品的数量征税。我们使用“事件研究”方法，通过伦敦证券交易所（London Stock Exchange）上四家在英国运营的软饮料公司的股票收益评估SDIL对部分软饮料行业的可能财务影响。我们发现，四家公司中的三家在公告之日出现了负的异常股票收益。横断面分析显示，自SDIL宣布之日起，软饮料库存的累积异常收益率不明显低于其他与食品和饮料相关的股票。我们的发现表明，SDIL公告最初被市场认为是不利消息，但负股票收益是短暂的，这表明行业缺乏重大担忧。有限的证据表明，股市对随后的两份公告有负面反应：2016年12月5日发布立法草案，2017年3月8日确认税率。