Do Managers Tacitly Collude to Withhold Industry-Wide Bad News?
February 25, 2013 Leave a comment
Do Managers Tacitly Collude to Withhold Industry-Wide Bad News?
University of Chicago – Booth School of Business
University of Pennsylvania – Accounting Department
University of Chicago – Booth School of Business
February 1, 2013
Chicago Booth Research Paper No. 13-12
Abstract:
That managers would choose to withhold firm-specific bad news is not only intuitive, but supported by theory, observed disclosure patterns, and survey responses. When the bad news is industry-wide, however, explaining withholding as a sustainable equilibrium is more complicated. If any one firm chooses to disclose, the news effectively becomes public, creating incentives for other firms to disclose. Withholding is only sustainable if all firms cooperate (“tacitly collude”), which depends on their own incentives, and their conjectures about the incentives of other firms in the industry to cooperate. We document cases of increased intra-industry opacity in the annual 1’2K, controlling for changes in fundamentals, consistent with tacit collusion to hide news. Tacit collusion is more likely in industries with more significant equity incentives and more concentrated industries, and less likely in industries in which observable/public macro-economic data relevant to firm valuation is available. The collusion episodes are followed by abnormally poor industry level accounting and market performance two to three years out. The results have implications for understanding when market forces are sufficient to generate voluntary disclosure of industry-wide news.
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