We investigate whether cross-listing shares in the form of depositary receipts in overseas markets benefits investors in emerging market countries during periods of local financial crisis from 1994 to 2002. We regress cumulative abnormal returns for three windows surrounding the crisis events on the cross-listing status while controlling for cross-sectional differences in firm age, trading volume, foreign exposure, disclosure quality and corporate governance. Further, we examine cross-listing effects in countries popularly thought to experience contagious effects of these crises. We find that cross-listed firms react significantly less negatively than non-cross-listed firms, particularly in the aftermath of the crisis. The results on contagious cross-listing effects are however mixed. Our findings are consistent with predictions based on theories of market segmentation as well as differential disclosure/governance between developed and emerging markets. We do not find evidence that foreign investors “panic” during a currency crisis.

Using financial institution mergers as exogenous shocks to common ownership, we find that stock prices of commonly held firms incorporate future earnings news more quickly and are less sensitive to noise trades. Our analyses show that the increase in price informativeness is associated with: (1) increases in disclosure, (2) enhanced information production and diffusion, and (3) active trading by common owners. Further, we find that the investment sensitivity to Tobin's Q for commonly held firms is higher, indicating that managers of such firms rely more on market prices for information. These results are robust to controlling for the financial crisis, and to alternative control groups. Our findings suggest that common ownership has a positive effect on information production and influences real corporate decision by improving price informativeness.