Corporate Derivatives Usage, Information Environment, and Stock Price Crash Risk
研究了公司使用衍生品对股价崩盘风险的影响，发现衍生品使用通过减少信息不透明、抑制过度投资和扩大股东基础来降低崩盘风险，支持透明度假说。
This study investigates the effect of corporate derivatives usage on stock price crash risk. We test two competing hypotheses. Under the transparency hypothesis, derivatives usage reduces information opacity and lowers crash risk. Under the speculation hypothesis, derivatives usage exacerbates managerial short-termism and increases crash risk. We find evidence supporting the transparency hypothesis. This result is robust to sensitivity checks including a two-stage treatment model, difference-in-differences test, and subsample analysis. We further show that curbing bad news hoarding, curtailing overinvestment, and increasing breadth of ownership are potential channels through which derivatives usage mitigates crash risk. Additional tests on the effect of derivatives usage on likelihood of securities class-action litigation provide consistent results.