The Brazilian Electricity Energy Market: The Role of Regulatory Content Intensity and Its Impact on Capital Shares Risk

This study analyzes the risk related effect of content intensity in regulatory legislation on the shares of the companies operating in the Brazilian electricity energy market. For this analysis, the regulatory legislation, enshrined in the Federal Constitution of 1988 until 2013 and addressed to the market, was captured and selected using the Markov Regime Switching model of Regime Change. The intensity of Regulatory Content (RC) in each legislative action was quantified through the content analysis technique. The results suggest that, when classified in event families, the risk impact on shares is different and gradual. Further, the individual analyses of the different types of events, classified according to the RC intensity, show that strong and average intensity events have a higher impact on the risk factors of shares of the companies that constitute the sector. Conversely, political or institutional decisions that have low intensity of RC are not perceived as significant in the market. As research contribution, the results presented confirm that regulatory events must be differentiated by type, since they have varying influences on regulatory risk. Moreover, this study demonstrates that the RC intensity is important, and in this case, the higher its presence, the greater the impact of the potential risk on the regulated sector’s shares. Keywords: Market Model; Capital Asset Pricing Model; Laws JEL Classifications: E3; G38; K23; M48; Q