Is Investor Attention for Sale? The Role of Advertising in Financial Markets

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Madsen, Joshua; Niessner, Marina
• 署名单位: University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12257
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 763-795
• 关键词: information; underreaction; dissemination; promotions; press

摘要

Prior research documents capital market benefits of increased investor attention to accounting disclosures and media coverage; however, little is known about how investors and markets respond to attention-grabbing events that reveal little nonpublic information. We use daily firm advertising data to test how advertisements, which are designed to attract consumers' attention, influence investors' attention and financial markets (i.e., spillover effects). Exploiting the fact that firms often advertise at weekly intervals, we use an instrumental variables approach to provide evidence that print ads, especially in business publications, trigger temporary spikes in investor attention. We further find that trading volume and quoted dollar depths increase on days with ads in a business publication. We contribute to research on how management choices influence firms' information environments, determinants and consequences of investor attention, and consequences of advertising for financial markets.