We study the stock market performance of firms with Jewish board members during the “Dreyfus Affair” in 19th century France. In a context of widespread latent antisemitism, initial accusations made against the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus led to short-lived abnormal negative returns for Jewish-connected firms. However, investors betting on these firms earned higher returns during the period corresponding to Dreyfus' rehabilitation, starting with the publication of the famous op-ed in 1898. Our conceptual framework illustrates how diminishing antisemitic biases among investors might plausibly explain these effects. Our paper provides novel insights on how antisemitism can increase and decrease over short periods of time at the highest socio-economic levels in response to certain events, which in turn can affect firm value in financial markets.

中文翻译：

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我控诉！德雷福斯事件时期的反犹太主义和金融市场

我们研究了 19 世纪法国“德雷福斯事件”期间董事会成员为犹太裔的公司的股票市场表现。在反犹太主义普遍存在的背景下，对犹太官员阿尔弗雷德·德雷福斯的最初指控导致与犹太有联系的公司出现了短暂的异常负回报。然而，从 1898 年著名专栏文章发表开始，押注这些公司的投资者在德雷福斯平反期间获得了更高的回报。我们的概念框架说明了投资者中反犹太偏见的减少如何能够合理地解释这些影响。我们的论文提供了关于反犹太主义如何在最高社会经济水平上在短时间内增加和减少以应对某些事件的新颖见解，这反过来又会影响金融市场的公司价值。