Previous studies on the impact of corporate information disclosure on stock price crash risk have largely focused on financial statements. In contrast, China’s unique monthly operating report disclosure system—featuring high frequency and realtime operational data—offers a distinct information channel. Using data from A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2021, we find that monthly operating report disclosures significantly reduce stock price crash risk by alleviating information asymmetry between firms and external stakeholders. The underlying mechanisms involve restraining managerial opportunism and correcting investor expectation biases. Further analysis shows that firms’ official responses to investor inquiries has no significant effect on crash risk once monthly operational disclosures are accounted for, underscoring that the quality of information disclosed is as important as its frequency. The risk-reducing effect is more pronounced among firms with greater business complexity, weaker internal controls, and lower institutional ownership.

How do expectation biases causally affect households’ financial decisions? We exploit a unique setting and study the repayment decision in solar loans, in which households borrow to purchase and install solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Electricity production – the benefit that solar panels generate – primarily depends on sunshine duration. This creates exogenous within-person across-period variation in recent signals that borrowers observe and thereby expectations of future electricity production. We find that a one-standard-deviation decrease in sunshine duration in the week right before the repayment date leads to a 20.8% increase of delinquency, even though deviated past sunshine duration does not predict that in the future. Survey evidence shows that agents make more positive forecasts of future electricity production after experiencing longer sunshine duration in the past week. We examine a battery of alternative explanations and rule out mechanisms based on liquidity constraints and wealth effects.