Disclosure Tone and Short-Selling Pressure: Evidence from Regulation-SHO
利用SHO规则外生放松卖空约束，研究发现卖空压力能抑制管理层语调操纵，减少与基本面无关的乐观语调，尤其对前期卖空限制强和管理层过度乐观的企业效果更显著。
Managers use disclosure tone as a strategic tool to manage investors' expectations and demand for information.I provide evidence that investors' actions can, in turn, exercise a disciplining effect on tone management.Using exogenous relaxation in the short-selling constraints from Regulation-SHO and employing the difference-in-differences design on a propensity-score matched sample, I find that shortselling pressure reduces tone management.Greater short-selling pressure results in less optimism in tone unrelated to fundamentals, and in disclosures about the future rather than the past.Moreover, this reduction in tone management is stronger for firms with higher short-selling constraints pre-Regulation-SHO and for those with overoptimistic and overconfident managers.