DO INVESTORS’ REACTIONS TO ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY NEWS ANNOUNCEMENTS DIFFER ACROSS INDUSTRIES? A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF JAPAN’S FOOD AND AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIES

Recently, investors’ growing awareness of environmental concerns has prompted many businesses to implement green policies and procedures. Investors’ reactions firms’ efforts vary across different industries. However, few empirical studies have addressed these differences, especially in Japan – the third-largest sustainable investor world. Using data from Japanese food automotive industries, this research examined sector-specific differences performance, indicated by environmentally friendly news releases, using a short-term event study Student’s t-tests. Results that investors respond negatively activities automobile sectors, supporting neo-classical theory. The also imply that, Japan, industry variances neutral effect on performance but significant long-term effect. In addition, responses sector are more unfavorable than industry. This implications for policymakers managers.