No news is bad news: local news intensity and firms’ information environments

IF 4.8 3区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Review of Accounting Studies Pub Date : 2023-10-16 DOI:10.1007/s11142-023-09811-7

Kristian D. Allee, Ryan Cating, Caleb Rawson

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Abstract

Abstract We examine the effects of local newspapers on firms’ information environments. With newspaper employment dropping precipitously in the last few decades, we posit that these changes will harm local firms’ information environments. Consistent with local news improving information environments, we find that volatility, spreads, and illiquidity increase as local newspaper intensity declines and that this is associated with firms’ importance in their local economy. We further find that for firms that are more important in their community, or have busy analysts, less local newspaper intensity is associated with significantly lower analyst accuracy and higher forecast dispersion. This is consistent with local newspapers improving information environments, even for sophisticated and likely remote information intermediaries. We also investigate how stakeholders respond to declines in local news and find that managers increase the amount of forward-looking disclosures while analysts increase coverage. These results provide insights into the methods by which stakeholders attempt to improve firms’ information environments when local news coverage fades.

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没有新闻就是坏消息:地方新闻强度和企业的信息环境

摘要本文研究了地方报纸对企业信息环境的影响。在过去的几十年里，报纸的就业率急剧下降，我们认为这些变化将损害当地公司的信息环境。与地方新闻改善信息环境相一致的是，我们发现波动性、价差和非流动性随着地方报纸强度的下降而增加，这与公司在当地经济中的重要性有关。我们进一步发现，对于在其社区中更重要的公司，或者有繁忙的分析师，较少的当地报纸强度与分析师准确性显著降低和预测离散度较高相关。这与地方报纸改善信息环境是一致的，即使对于复杂的和可能遥远的信息中介也是如此。我们还调查了利益相关者对当地新闻下降的反应，发现管理者增加前瞻性披露的数量，而分析师增加报道。这些结果为当本地新闻报道消失时，利益相关者试图改善公司信息环境的方法提供了见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Review of Accounting Studies BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

7.90

自引率

7.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： Review of Accounting Studies provides an outlet for significant academic research in accounting including theoretical, empirical, and experimental work. The journal is committed to the principle that distinctive scholarship is rigorous. While the editors encourage all forms of research, it must contribute to the discipline of accounting. The Review of Accounting Studies is committed to prompt turnaround on the manuscripts it receives. For the majority of manuscripts the journal will make an accept-reject decision on the first round. Authors will be provided the opportunity to revise accepted manuscripts in response to reviewer and editor comments; however, discretion over such manuscripts resides principally with the authors. An editorial revise and resubmit decision is reserved for new submissions which are not acceptable in their current version, but for which the editor sees a clear path of changes which would make the manuscript publishable. Officially cited as: Rev Account Stud