This paper examines how privacy regulation shaped firm performance. Controlling for firm and country‐industry‐year unobserved characteristics, we compare the outcomes of firms at different levels of exposure to EU markets, before and after the enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. We find that the GDPR had the unintended consequence of harming the profitability of companies targeting European consumers through the cost channel. Technology firms experienced a 2.1% decline in profits, but not in sales. The GDPR increased extra expenses, added to firms wage bills, and accelerated patenting in GDPR‐related technology fields. The main burdens have been borne by smaller companies.

中文翻译：

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隐私监管和公司绩效：估计 GDPR 在全球范围内的影响

本文探讨了隐私监管如何影响公司绩效。控制公司和国家/地区行业年度未观察到的特征，我们比较了 2018 年《通用数据保护条例》(GDPR) 实施前后不同程度的欧盟市场暴露程度的公司的结果。我们发现 GDPR通过成本渠道损害针对欧洲消费者的公司的盈利能力所带来的意想不到的后果。科技公司的利润下降了 2.1%，但销售额却没有下降。GDPR 增加了额外费用，增加了企业的工资支出，并加速了 GDPR 相关技术领域的专利申请。主要负担由较小的公司承担。