EU Regulation and open market share repurchases: new evidence

This paper re-examines the impact of EU Market Abuse Directive (MAD) on market reaction around share repurchase announcements. We use a unique hand-collected dataset firms listed Athens Stock Exchange, and we find evidence that contrasts with previous conclusions for large European economies. The implementation MAD is followed by significant increase in announcement abnormal returns, which more pronounced initial programs. Our results remain robust to series robustness tests. attribute our findings cross-country differences institutional framework pre-MAD existing national laws. Collectively, support notion directives do not have uniform effect across Member States. Thus, such reforms should also be examined individual capital studies.