Accounting Seminar（2020-01）

Topic: Transparency of Private Meetings and Market Participants’ Attention Allocation: Evidence from Analysts in China

Speaker: Ronghuo Zheng，The University of Texas at Austin

Time: Friday, Jan 3rd, 13:00-14:30 p.m

Place: Room K02, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

In this paper, we investigate the consequences of increased transparency of private meetings on the attention allocation of market participants. Using the mandated disclosure requirements of private in-house meetings by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) in China in July 2012 as a setting, we find that analysts who have not participated in the disclosed private meetings switch their attention to other peer firms. This result suggests that such transparency reveals relative information disadvantage to analysts by disclosing peer analysts’ information acquisition activities. Cross-sectional analyses suggest that the effects are more pronounced when the potential information disadvantage is larger. We further document a reduction in information symmetry and an improvement in market liquidity for those peers firms, suggesting that such transparency has positive spillover effects on peer firms’ information environment by influencing analysts’ attention allocation. Our paper has policy implications as it suggests that, despite the potential disclosure costs directly imposed on firms, firms collectively can benefit from this disclosure requirement due to the positive spillover effect.

Introduction:

Dr. Ronghuo Zheng (郑荣获) is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Texas at Austin since 2016. Dr. Zheng’s primary research interests focus on the determinants and consequences of firms’ information environment and disclosure policy. His research has been published in major accounting and business journals, including Journal of Accounting and Economics, Management Science, and INFORMS Journal on Computing. Dr. Zheng earned a Bachelor from Tsinghua University in 2010 and Ph.D. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016.

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