Shall we talk? The role of interactive investor platforms in corporate communication

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lee, Charles M. C.; Zhong, Qinlin
• 署名单位: Stanford University; University of Washington; University of Washington Seattle; Fudan University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2022.101524
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: voluntary disclosure; CONFERENCE CALLS; INFORMATION; MARKET; liquidity; ask; PRESENTATIONS; illiquidity; attention; analysts

摘要

Between 2010 and 2017, Chinese investors used an investor interactive platform (IIP) to ask public companies around 2.5 million questions, the vast majority of which received a reply within two weeks. We analyze these IIP dialogues using a BERT-based algorithm and provide preliminary evidence on their causes and consequences. Our analyses show most questions reflect investors' difficulties in processing information already in the public domain. Controlling for other news, higher IIP activity is associated with increases in trading volume, return volatility, market liquidity, and price informativeness as well as decreases in bid-ask spread. Financial statement-related postings increase around the adoption of new accounting standards. Collectively, our results show that investors face significant information processing costs but that IIP activities help reduce these costs, leading to improvements in stock price formation.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.