We investigate the impact of mass layoff announcements on industry rivals and find that investors perceive layoff announcements as news about industry prospects. When a layoff announcement conveys good (bad) news for the announcer, rivals on average witness a 0.51% increase (0.65% decrease) in cumulative abnormal stock returns. To explain this industry effect, we test a “growth opportunities” channel, where rivals with greater growth opportunities are affected most by changing industry prospects, and find that these firms experience the strongest contagion effect. Alternative industry classifications and a placebo test confirm that our results are not driven by confounding factors.

中文翻译：

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竞争对手的增长前景和股票价格：来自大规模裁员公告的证据

我们调查了大规模裁员公告对行业竞争对手的影响，发现投资者将裁员公告视为有关行业前景的消息。当裁员公告为播音员传达好（坏）消息时，竞争对手的累计异常股票回报平均增加 0.51%（下降 0.65%）。为了解释这种行业效应，我们测试了一个“增长机会”渠道，其中增长机会更大的竞争对手受行业前景变化的影响最大，并发现这些公司的传染效应最强。替代行业分类和安慰剂测试证实，我们的结果不是由混杂因素驱动的。