In this paper, we exploit the open nature of conference calls to explore whether managers withhold information from the investing public. Our evidence suggests that managers regularly leave participants on the conference call in the dark by not answering their questions. We find that the best...

Using a sample of over 10,000 earnings-related conference call transcripts, we examine the determinants of within-firm variation in the length of managers' presentation and analyst discussion periods during earnings-related conference calls. We find that managers' presentations are longer when...

Libby, Mathieu and Robb (2002) investigate, among other things, the impact of intraday timing of earnings announcements on the bid-ask spread and depth for a sample of firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. They document, in a univariate setting, that the spread is relatively wider and the...

This paper analyzes trading records of online retail bank investors to examine whether attention-type events dominate return feedback strategies in explaining individual investors' stock option trading decisions. We show that although individual investors are net buyers of common stock on...

Corporate managers increasingly employ interactive media to communicate with market participants. Exploiting the live, interactive nature of conference call question-and-answer (Q&A) sessions, in which participants get the opportunity to ask their questions, our analysis reveals that conference...

We adapt simple tools from computational linguistics to construct a new measure of political risk faced by individual US firms: the share of their quarterly earnings conference calls that they devote to political risks. We validate our measure by showing it correctly identifies calls containing...

How do the distance constraints faced by lenders in acquiring borrower information affect the design of bank loan contracts? Theoretical studies posit that greater information asymmetry leads to the allocation of stronger ex ante decision rights to the lender (the uninformed party). Consistent...

We propose a text-based method for measuring and analyzing the international propagation of uncertainty shocks at the firm level. We apply this method to estimate the impact of Brexit-related uncertainty and find widespread reverberations on listed firms in 81 countries. International firms most...

Using a dynamic text-based approach to measuring firms’ tax policy expectations, we show that two tax-changing events—namely, the 2016 U.S. election and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—affected these expectations in ways that vary substantially across firms and sometimes run counter to...

We propose a text-based method for measuring and analyzing the international propagation of uncertainty shocks at the firm level. We apply this method to estimate the impact of Brexit-related uncertainty and find widespread reverberations on listed firms in 81 countries. International firms most...