Does Greater Public Scrutiny Hurt a Firm’s Performance?

Benjamin Bennett, René M. Stulz and Zexi Wang

No 30858, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Public attention to a firm may provide valuable monitoring, but it may also have a dark side by constraining management’s decisions and distracting it. We use inclusion in the S&P 500 index as a positive shock to public attention. Media coverage, Google searches, SEC downloads, SEC comment letters, shareholder proposals, analyst coverage, and lawsuits increase following inclusion. Post-inclusion performance falls and is negatively related to the increase in attention. Included firms’ investment and payout policies become more similar to those of index peers and the increase in similarity is positively related to the size of the attention increase.

JEL-codes: G24 G31 G32 G35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn
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