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Does media coverage deter firms from withholding bad news? Evidence from stock price crash risk

Zhe An (), Chen Chen, Vic Naiker and Jun Wang

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2020, vol. 64, issue C

Abstract: Spurred by the informational and disciplinary roles that the media fulfils, this study provides initial evidence on how higher media coverage is associated with a lower tendency of firms withholding bad news, proxied by stock price crash risk. Our main findings are robust to a battery of tests that account for endogeneity concerns including a difference-in-differences analysis based on newspaper closures that exogenously reduce media coverage and a regression-discontinuity design analysis based on the top band of Russell 2000 and lower band of Russell 1000 index stocks. Additional tests reveal that the negative relation between media coverage and stock price crash risk is concentrated within firms with more negative and novel news coverage and firms with higher litigation or reputation risks. We also find that media plays an important role in reducing future stock price crash risk when there is reduced monitoring by other external monitoring mechanisms such as external auditors, financial analysts, and institutional shareholders.

Keywords: Media coverage; Stock Price crash risk; Informational role; Disciplinary role (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 G14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (93)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:64:y:2020:i:c:s0929119920301085

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101664

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