Stock transferability, the managerial learning effect and corporate innovation

Abstract

This paper considers stock halts to study the impact of stock liquidity loss on the managerial learning effect based on stock prices. We examine stock halts’ impact on corporate innovation and find that discretionary halts hinder innovation. We also find that discretionary halts reduce information quality and increase financial constraints and agent costs. Cross-sectional tests show that this negative impact is more pronounced in samples with high shareholding ratios by large shareholders, institutional investors and private firms. The results indicate that the loss of non-institutional stock trading rights, represented by discretionary stock halts, affects revelatory price efficiency in the secondary market, hinders managers’ learning effect and affects enterprises’ production and operation decisions. These findings have policy implications for stock circulation-right protection and Chinese capital-market reform.