Despite the prevalence and importance of humor in interpersonal communication, the disclosure literature is silent on the use of humor in the context of corporate communications. We examine analysts' and managers' use of humor during public earnings conference calls. Using a sample of nearly...

We examine how the co-location of firms in the same industry affects analysts' cost of gathering and processing information. We find that when the firms in an analyst's portfolio are located farther away from other firms in the same industry, the analyst's portfolio size is smaller and average...

This paper investigates whether private information from lending activities improves the forecast accuracy of bank-affiliated analysts. Using a matched sample design, matching by affiliated bank or borrower, we demonstrate that the forecast accuracy of bank-affiliated analysts increases after...

Using the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) as an exogenous shock to costs of information acquisition, we show that reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to (i) a significant increase in information production, evidenced by a higher frequency of analysts visiting portfolio firms,...

Using the introduction of high-speed rail as exogenous shocks to costs of information acquisition, we show that reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to a significant increase in information production and improvement in output quality, evidenced by higher frequency of analysts...