This study examines the effect of the readability of firm written communication on the behavior of sell-side financial analysts. Using a measure of the readability of corporate 10-K filings, we document that analyst following, the amount of effort incurred to generate their reports, and the...

This study examines analyst information intermediary roles using a textual analysis of analyst reports and corporate disclosures. We employ a topic modeling methodology from computational linguistic research to compare the thematic content of a large sample of analyst reports issued promptly...

Despite broad interest in analysts' activities, our understanding of sell-side analysts as a collective group is limited. This paper examines changes in the scope of the sell-side analyst industry and whether these changes impact information dissemination. Changes in the number of analysts...

Contrary to the central prediction of signaling models, changes in profits do not empirically follow changes in dividends. We show both theoretically and empirically that dividends signal safer, rather than higher, future profits. Using the Campbell (1991) decomposition, we are able to estimate...

Contrary to signaling models' central predictions, changes in profits do not empirically follow changes in dividends, and firms with the least need to signal pay the bulk of dividends. We show both theoretically and empirically that dividends signal safer, rather than higher, future profits....

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,...