Topic modeling

  • 详情 The Information Content of Corporate Disclosure Via Wechat Public Account
    During the past decade, Wechat-public-accounts (WPAs) have gained increasing popularity as a novel tool for voluntary disclosure among Chinese public firms. This paper examines whether WPA disclosures provide value-relevant information to the market. Using a topic model to process over 1.6 million WPA articles during 2012-2020 and an event study design, we find that the stock market reacts strongly following a WPA disclosure event and the magnitude varies with the topic and textual feature of the WPA articles. We further present evidence that firms use their WPAs to provide new information rather than reinforce information that is already presented in other channels. Moreover, financial analysts, journalists, and retail investors rely on corporate WPAs for their information production. Collectively, our findings indicate that corporate WPAs are an economically significant source of new information for market participants that supplement traditional disclosure channels considered in prior studies.