Public Disclosure of Private Meetings: Does Observing Peers’ Information Acquisition Affect Analysts’ Attention Allocation?
研究深圳证券交易所的及时披露规定如何影响分析师观察同行访问企业后调整自身注意力，发现非访问分析师减少对访问企业的关注并可能停止跟踪，但改善了未访问企业的短期信息环境。
ABSTRACT We investigate the impact of observing peers’ information acquisition on financial analysts’ allocation of attention. Using the timely disclosure mandate by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as a setting, we find that, shortly after analysts observe that a firm has been visited by peer analysts, they reduce short‐term attention to that firm, as indicated by a reduced tendency to conduct follow‐up visits. Nonvisiting analysts who do not conduct follow‐up visits are more likely to discontinue coverage of the visited firm. These findings are consistent with the conjecture that the timely disclosure reveals the first‐mover advantage of visiting analysts, leading nonvisiting ones to reallocate their limited attention. We also find that, compared with the pre‐mandate period, the information environments of visited firms deteriorate immediately after an analyst's visit but not over the longer term. Further evidence suggests that the timely disclosure mandate has positive externalities in the form of increased immediate attention to and improved short‐term information environments of unvisited peer firms.