Insider trading restriction enforcement, investor protection, and innovation
研究美国SEC对内幕交易的执法行动如何影响企业创新和绩效，发现外部监管限制和内部黑名单限制均能促进创新活动，通过保护外部投资激励企业增加创新投入。
Abstract US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement actions are intended to protect investors and limit expropriation by firm insiders, but these SEC actions could affect insiders' incentives to contribute to value‐enhancing activities. Therefore, we explore how corporate innovation and performance respond to insider trading restrictions imposed by regulators and firms. Using manually collected data on SEC indictments against corporate insiders, we document more innovative activity following external insider trading restrictions. External restrictions are also followed by higher corporate investment, capital access, and operating performance. Similarly, internal blackout restrictions to insider trading are linked to more innovation as well. We use SEC and congressional rule changes as quasi‐natural experiments resulting in shocks in enforcement and indictments for identification and inference. Our results suggest insider trading restrictions and enforcement actions affect subsequent firm activities and managerial decisions by protecting outside investment, resulting in more investment in innovation.