Internal information quality and financial policy peer effects
研究发现，企业内部信息质量越低，越容易模仿同行业其他公司的杠杆调整行为，这种模仿会损害经营业绩，且在治理较差的公司中更明显。
This paper investigates how firms' internal information quality (IIQ) influences the peer effects of their financial policies. Using earnings announcement speed and insider trading profitability difference as measurements, we find that when IIQ is low, firms are more likely to change their leverage following a similar change made by peer firms in the same industry. Our further analysis shows that this mimicking behavior hurts firms' operating performance, and is more prevalent when firms are also characterized by poor corporate governance. Overall, our results indicate that poor information quality could amplify the agency problem, therefore leading to stronger peer effects in corporate financial policies.