Product Recalls and Insider Trading

Abstract

The timeline of product recalls provides corporate insiders with an opportunity to sell stocks before the market reacts to a recall. In this paper, we examine whether such insider trading occurs during the product recall process. Our results show that insider trading is present and that directors but not officers seem to engage in it in the days following defect awareness. Thus, we identify the product recall process as a novel source of information that insiders exploit for personal gains.