Researcher ORCID Identifier

0009-0007-8645-0799

Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

4-2026

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Richard Burdekin

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Rights Information

© 2026 Avi Dayani

Abstract

This thesis examines when culturally salient events become financially material by testing whether Academy Awards recognition is reflected in public equity markets. The central question is whether Best Picture nomination announcements and wins generate abnormal returns or abnormal trading activity for the publicly traded parent firms linked to nominated films, and whether those responses depend on the firm’s exposure to filmed entertainment. I study Best Picture nominees from 2000 through 2024, map each film to the public parent of its primary distributor, and construct a firm-by-Oscar-year sample of 119 observations. Using an event-study framework, I calculate abnormal returns as firm daily returns minus the CRSP value-weighted market return and examine cumulative abnormal returns and abnormal turnover around nomination and ceremony dates. The results show little evidence of a broad market reaction to nominations: mean nomination CAR[-1,+1] is approximately -0.03%, and the main return regressions are statistically insignificant. The evidence is stronger around wins. In win CAR[0,+1] regressions with Oscar-year fixed effects, the winner effect is positive, with estimates around 0.72 to 0.76 percentage points, and becomes statistically significant in the pure-play specification. Pure-play firms also experience stronger win-window returns, while nominee count is consistently insignificant. These findings suggest that cultural recognition becomes valuation-relevant only when the event is sufficiently salient and the linked firm is economically exposed to the underlying cash-flow shock.

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