The Effect of Cross‐Listing on Industry Performance in Emerging Economies

Abstract

We examine cross‐listing effects for 61 emerging market firms across five industries: Energy, Utilities, Materials, Food Beverages and Tobacco (FBT), and Insurance listed on US exchanges from 2004 to 2023, applying the Callaway and Sant'Anna doubly robust estimator. Comparing two‐way fixed effects (TWFEs) against doubly robust estimates quantifies a 0.1229 percentage point WACC bias that standard difference‐in‐difference (DiD) methods introduce when cross‐listing timing is heterogeneous. Three findings emerge. First, regulatory tightening amplifies rather than deters cross‐listing benefits for strategic sectors: FBT and Energy record monotonically increasing valuation and financing effects from pre‐Sarbanes‐Oxley Act through post‐Dodd‐Frank Act, directly contradicting Doidge et al. Second, market volatility outcomes by sector structural type, defensive sectors benefit more under stress, commodity sectors under stability, and Utilities reverses sign on both channels, establishing VIX sensitivity as a structural characteristic rather than a transient effect. Third, strategic sectors activate valuation and financing channels simultaneously whilst defensive sectors activate them sequentially, connecting the first two findings. Positive Tobin Q effects are confirmed in four of five industries; WACC effects are sector‐differentiated rather than universally directional.