Copycat Skills and Disclosure Costs: Evidence from Peer Companies' Digital Footprints

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cao, Sean Shun; Du, Kai; Yang, Baozhong; Zhang, Alan L.
• 署名单位: University System of Georgia; Georgia State University; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; State University System of Florida; Florida International University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12369
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1261-1302
• 关键词: CORPORATE DISCLOSURE; PROPRIETARY; INFORMATION; funds; cournot; MARKET

摘要

We examine whether firms that imitate peer companies' strategies (copycats) profit from such behavior and how their success may cause competitive harm to disclosing companies. We identify copycat companies by tracking the digital footprints of investment companies that view disclosures on the SEC EDGAR Web site. We find that copycat companies are able to identify profitable trades that outperform other trades disclosed by the copycatted companies by 5.5% annually. Such stock-screening skills are related to investment sophistication and research intensity. Furthermore, copycats inflict greater damage on the performance of disclosing companies when they possess superior copycat skills, when disclosed trading strategies take longer to complete, and when disclosed stock holdings are characterized by high information asymmetry.