Public Disclosure of Private Meetings: Does Observing Peers' Information Acquisition Affect Analysts' Attention Allocation?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ru, Yi; Zheng, Ronghuo; Zou, Yuan
• 署名单位: Renmin University of China; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12603
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1629-1677
• 关键词: CORPORATE DISCLOSURE; career concerns; MARKET; recommendations; CONSEQUENCES; coverage; industry; FIRMS; BIAS

摘要

We investigate the impact of observing peers' information acquisition on financial analysts' allocation of attention. Using the timely disclosure mandate by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as a setting, we find that, shortly after analysts observe that a firm has been visited by peer analysts, they reduce short-term attention to that firm, as indicated by a reduced tendency to conduct follow-up visits. Nonvisiting analysts who do not conduct follow-up visits are more likely to discontinue coverage of the visited firm. These findings are consistent with the conjecture that the timely disclosure reveals the first-mover advantage of visiting analysts, leading nonvisiting ones to reallocate their limited attention. We also find that, compared with the pre-mandate period, the information environments of visited firms deteriorate immediately after an analyst's visit but not over the longer term. Further evidence suggests that the timely disclosure mandate has positive externalities in the form of increased immediate attention to and improved short-term information environments of unvisited peer firms.