Non‐Answers During Conference Calls
通过电话会议的语言分析，构建了一个衡量公司选择性披露的新指标，识别管理者对分析师问题的“非回答”，发现约11%的问题被回避，且与问题语气、不确定性、复杂性和专有信息相关。
ABSTRACT We construct a novel measure of disclosure choice by firms. Our measure is computed using linguistic analysis of conference calls to identify whether a manager's response to an analyst question is a “non‐answer.” Using our measure, about 11% of analyst questions elicit non‐answers from managers, a rate that is stable over time and similar across industries. A useful feature of our measure is that it enables an examination of disclosure choice within a call. Analyst questions with a negative tone, greater uncertainty, greater complexity, or requests for greater detail are more likely to trigger non‐answers. We find performance‐related questions tend to be associated with non‐answers, and this association is weaker when performance news is favorable. We also find analyst questions about proprietary information are associated with non‐answers, and this association is stronger when firm competition is more intense.