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The wisdom of crowds and the market's response to earnings news: Evidence using the geographic dispersion of investors

Jason V. Chen

Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2023, vol. 75, issue 2

Abstract: The wisdom of crowds suggests that groups with more diversely informed individuals reach more informed decisions because their members are collectively more knowledgeable. I study this idea in the context of the market's response to earnings announcements by examining how information diversity across investors affects the efficiency of the price response to earnings news. I measure investors' information diversity based on their geographic dispersion, which I estimate using the locations of the requests for firms' filings to EDGAR. Greater geographic dispersion is associated with greater trading during the announcement period; this supports the use of geographic dispersion as a measure of information diversity. Consistent with my predictions, the price response to a firm's earnings news is more efficient when the firm's investors have greater information diversity. In further analysis, I find that the initial heightened trading for firms with more diversely informed investors subsides quickly after the announcement period.

Keywords: Information diversity; Geography; Earnings announcements; EDGAR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 G12 G14 M40 M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:75:y:2023:i:2:s0165410122000908

DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2022.101567

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Journal of Accounting and Economics is currently edited by J. L. Zimmerman, S. P. Kothari, T. Z. Lys and R. L. Watts

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