Is Investor Attention for Sale? The Role of Advertising in Financial Markets
60 Pages Posted: 8 Oct 2014 Last revised: 13 Feb 2019
There are 2 versions of this paper
Is Investor Attention for Sale? The Role of Advertising in Financial Markets
Is Investor Attention for Sale? The Role of Advertising in Financial Markets
Date Written: January 8, 2019
Abstract
Prior research documents capital market benefits of increased investor attention to accounting disclosures and media coverage, however little is known about how investors and markets respond to attention-grabbing events that reveal little nonpublic information. We use daily firm advertising data to test how advertisements, which are designed to attract consumers' attention, influence investors' attention and financial markets (i.e., spillover effects). Exploiting the fact that firms often advertise at weekly intervals, we use an instrumental variables approach to provide evidence that print ads, especially in business publications, trigger temporary spikes in investor attention. We further find that trading volume and quoted dollar depths increase on days with ads in a business publication. We contribute to research on how management choices influence firms' information environments, determinants and consequences of investor attention, and consequences of advertising for financial markets.
Keywords: Advertising, Investor Attention, Financial Markets, Earnings Announcements
JEL Classification: G12, G14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation