The Bullwhip Effect and Stock Returns

The bullwhip effect (BWE) is an important phenomenon in the operations and supply chain management field. Although it is commonly accepted that the BWE is widespread and can have a significant adverse impact on financial performance, there is surprisingly limited objective evidence on the financial consequences of the BWE. This paper examines the impact of the BWE on financial performance by examining the relationship between the BWE and stock price performance. The empirical analysis is based on data from 1985 to 2018 from about 7200 publicly traded firms and about 64,000 firm-years. We find that most results on the impact of the BWE on stock returns are statistically indistinguishable from zero. The few marginally significant results that we find suggest a positive relationship between the BWE and stock returns rather than the expected negative relationship. However, these marginally significant results do not hold when alternate methods are used to test the relationships. These conclusions are robust when we segment the sample by size, industry, and time periods. We also do not find a significant relationship between the BWE and stock returns for samples based on the propagation of the BWE from customers to suppliers. We do find some evidence to suggest that the BWE has a negative impact on inventory turnover. However, we do not find similar evidence for capacity utilization. The relationships between the BWE and return on assets measures are statistically insignificant. For margin measures, the relationships are positive and statistically significant but not economically significant.