Shall we talk? The role of interactive investor platforms in corporate communication

Authors Lee, Zhong
Journal Journal of Accounting and Economics
Year 2022
Type Published Paper
Abstract Between 2010 and 2017, Chinese investors used an investor interactive platform (IIP) to ask public companies around 2.5 million questions, the vast majority of which received a reply within two weeks. We analyze these IIP dialogues using a BERT-based algorithm and provide preliminary evidence on their causes and consequences. Our analyses show most questions reflect investors' difficulties in processing information already in the public domain. Controlling for other news, higher IIP activity is associated with increases in trading volume, return volatility, market liquidity, and price informativeness as well as decreases in bid-ask spread. Financial statement-related postings increase around the adoption of new accounting standards. Collectively, our results show that investors face significant information processing costs but that IIP activities help reduce these costs, leading to improvements in stock price formation.
Keywords Corporate disclosure, investor relations, information processing costs, interactive communication, market liquidity, price informativeness
URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410122000477
Tags Archival Empirical  |   Asset Pricing, Trading Volume and Market Efficiency  |   Manager / Firm Behavior