Do Firms Redact Information from Material Contracts to Conceal Bad News?
研究发现，企业向SEC提交保密处理请求以从重要合同中删减信息，这种行为与管理者隐藏的负面信息（以剩余空头头寸衡量）正相关，且会增加股价崩盘风险、降低未来业绩。
ABSTRACT The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers' private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.