Annual Report Readability, Tone Ambiguity, and the Cost of Borrowing
研究了公司年报的可读性和语气模糊性如何影响其借贷成本，发现文件越大、不确定和弱语气词越多，贷款合同越严格，未来股价崩盘风险越高。
This paper investigates the impact of a firm’s annual report readability and ambiguous tone on its borrowing costs. We find that firms with larger 10-K file sizes and a higher proportion of uncertain and weak modal words in 10-Ks have stricter loan contract terms and greater future stock price crash risk. Our results suggest that the readability and tone ambiguity of a firm’s financial disclosures are related to managerial information hoarding. Shareholders of firms with less readable and more ambiguous annual reports not only suffer from less transparent information disclosure but also bear the increased cost of external financing.