Public Disclosure of Private Meetings: Does Observing Peers’ Information Acquisition Affect Analysts’ Attention Allocation?

Forthcoming, Journal of Accounting Research

84 Pages Posted: 17 Nov 2020 Last revised: 2 Mar 2025

See all articles by Yi Ru

Yi Ru

Renmin University of China - Business School

Ronghuo Zheng

University of Texas at Austin - McCombs School of Business

Yuan Zou

Harvard University - Business School (HBS)

Date Written: January 21, 2025

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 to 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. 

Keywords: attention allocation, corporate site visits, externalities, analysts, information environment, private meetings

JEL Classification: G24, G14, M41, G10, G15, G20, M40, N25

Suggested Citation

Ru, Yi and Zheng, Ronghuo and Zou, Yuan, Public Disclosure of Private Meetings: Does Observing Peers’ Information Acquisition Affect Analysts’ Attention Allocation? (January 21, 2025). Forthcoming, Journal of Accounting Research, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3727718 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3727718

Yi Ru

Renmin University of China - Business School ( email )

Room 929
Mingde Business Building
Beijing, Beijing 100872
China

Ronghuo Zheng

University of Texas at Austin - McCombs School of Business ( email )

Austin, TX 78712
United States

Yuan Zou (Contact Author)

Harvard University - Business School (HBS)

Soldiers Field Road
Morgan 362
Boston, MA 02163
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
723
Abstract Views
2,590
Rank
76,194
PlumX Metrics