How does the information environment affect information asymmetry around earnings announcements?

[摘要] This paper shows that the information environment is an important determinant of private information acquisition and changes in information asymmetry around earnings announcements. I create a sample of earnings announcements from 39 countries and investigate whether firm and country-level variation in the information environment affects private information acquisition. To do this, I examine the level of information asymmetry before and during earnings announcements. A stronger firm-level information environment is (1) negatively related to changes in pre-event information asymmetry and (2) positively related to changes in event period information asymmetry. Similarly, a stronger country-level information environment is associated with the firm-level information environment having a stronger effect on information asymmetry before the announcement and a weaker effect during the announcement.

[发布机构] Massachusetts Institute of Technology