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Seeing is believing: the impact of corporate scandal documentaries on stock prices

Gregor Dorfleitner & Pedro Piccoli

Journal of Business Economics2026https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-025-01255-6article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

We investigate the behavior of stocks after the launch of Netflix’s scandal documentaries on the corresponding firms. We document a significant fall in prices after the release of the documentaries that is not reversed in the weeks following their launch, resulting in an average cumulative abnormal return of −15.34% three months after the event day. We also find a significant increase in stocks’ traded volumes and Google Search Volumes for the corresponding firms after the release of the documentaries. Moreover, we report a significant contemporaneous and lagged relation between stocks’ returns and traded volumes in the event window that is not seen before the release day. Taken together, these results suggest that the fall in stock prices is driven by investor attention. Our findings have significant implications for corporate misconduct and how market participants become informed and consequently price this behavior.

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Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-025-01255-6

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{gregor2026,
  title        = {{Seeing is believing: the impact of corporate scandal documentaries on stock prices}},
  author       = {Gregor Dorfleitner & Pedro Piccoli},
  journal      = {Journal of Business Economics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-025-01255-6},
}

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Seeing is believing: the impact of corporate scandal documentaries on stock prices

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.