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Excessive earnings management can significantly reduce the quality of accounting information, consequently harming the interests of investors and creditors. In the Chinese market, research on earnings management focuses primarily on corporate governance and external environmental viewpoints, with limited literature addressing debt governance. This paper centers on exploring the protective impact of bond covenants, revealing their inhibitory effect on both accrual and real earnings management through two potential mechanisms (agency conflicts and risk-taking). Furthermore, this study conducts a heterogeneous analysis from various perspectives, identifying how bond covenants influence earnings management in different ways and underscoring the moderating role played by underwriters. The findings offer theoretical insights for the development of a high-quality information disclosure system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air quality information disclosure has emerged as a popular policy tool to reduce emissions, yet its impact on both environmental and economic performance remains ambiguous. This study employs a comprehensive measure of environmental-economic efficiency, the Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP), to investigate the effect of China's mandated air quality disclosure program from 2003 to 2016. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that cities subject to disclosure experienced an average decline of 8% in GTFP. To further explore the heterogeneity in the treatment effect, we apply causal forest, a state-of-the-art causal machine learning technique for estimating individual treatment effects. The analysis uncovers substantial variation in the impact of information disclosure across cities, suggesting that the negative average effect may be partially attributed to mistargeting. We identify financial constraints, industrial composition, and urban scale as key moderators of the disclosure program's effectiveness. Moreover, our findings indicate that disclosing negative information, such as severe pollution levels or low environmental rankings, has a more pronounced impact compared to neutral content. By identifying key moderators and differential impacts of disclosure content, this study provides a foundation for targeted policy design to enhance the effectiveness of environmental information regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of sustainability information is a crucial step in raising awareness and promoting sustainability in the residential sector. The effectiveness of this information in increasing interest in sustainability depends on its relevancy and suitability for the intended recipients, namely potential buyers or renters. However, the evaluation of such suitability is impeded due to limited research regarding buyers' and renters' preferences and priorities for sustainability information. A nationwide survey of 410 respondents living in Australia provided the data to understand the sustainability priorities and information preferences of three apartment stakeholders: owner-residents, investors, and renters. The survey investigated how ownership type and demographics influence sustainability priorities as well as the perceived importance of information across three criteria: comfort, cost and consumption, and layout and location. The results show that current and potential apartment buyers and renters place high importance on receiving information pertaining to all three criteria. The comfort criterion was found to be significantly more important across most of the studied ownership and demographic groups. Findings from this study can assist apartment developers and researchers in determining key sustainability information that aligns with the preferences and priorities of the targeted buyers and renters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each stock market crash, from the 2015 China crash to the 2020 new coronavirus crash, has left investors terrified and hit China's economy hard. Companies that fail to meet financial analysts' surplus forecasts can trigger a negative market reaction. This reaction directly affects management and investor decisions and increases the risk of corporate share price collapse. Corporate management will therefore attempt to restrain excessive investor expectations by releasing a negative management tone designed to induce investors to invest scientifically and rationally, thereby reducing the risk of share price collapse. This study empirically examines the impact of external earnings pressure on stock price crash risk. It determines whether management tone has a threshold effect using, data on A-share listed companies in Shenzhen and Shanghai, China, covering 2014 to 2020. The results show that external earnings pressure significantly increases the risk of the stock price collapse; management tone has a single threshold effect on external earnings pressure and stock price collapse risk; a significantly negative correlation is observed between external earnings pressure and stock price collapse risk when management tone is below the threshold. This study provides sound advice for analysts, management and investors to better prevent and control risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain technology is commonly used in many industries. One current application is that providing supply chain transparency, sellers can disclose product information to consumers for authentication and certification. To examine the supply chain blockchain based transparency‐level strategy and its interact with different refund policies, in a two‐echelon supply chain, we consider a supplier decides on the transparency level and wholesale price, and a retailer decides on retail price and provides full refund (policy F), or partial refund (policy P), or no refund (policy N) policy to consumers. We find the refund policy choice and the transparency‐level strategy have a mutual influence. A lenient refund policy (a higher refund) can generate more demand, which makes the supplier to provide a high transparency level, whereas a high consumer's transparency awareness also promotes the retailer to choose a more lenient refund policy. We find Pareto improvement exists under a cost‐sharing strategy, and the retailer is willing to share part of the adoption cost only when the efficiency of improving the transparency level is moderate. Otherwise, the retailer adopts blockchain technology only when there is no cost sharing. Further, different shipping cost bearers can change the sensitivity of refund policy choice, and the supplier prefers to provide a high transparency level when the retailer covers the shipping cost. When the retailer becomes more socially responsible, the supplier is more willing to provide a higher transparency level, and the retailer is more willing to provide a partial refund policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Study Setting and Design Data Sources and Analytic Sample Principal Findings Conclusions To investigate women's perceptions of telemedicine for reproductive health care services, focusing on how perceived benefits and privacy risks influence their intentions to adopt telemedicine and their willingness to disclose personal health information.A cross‐sectional survey was conducted. The study applied the privacy calculus theory to the context of telemedicine for reproductive health, using adapted, validated variables to develop the survey. Outcome variables included intentions to adopt telemedicine and willingness to disclose accurate personal health information.Data were collected in May and June 2023 using Qualtrics online panel services, targeting women across the United States who had not used telemedicine for reproductive health. The sample comprised 847 women aged 18 and older. Structural equation modeling was employed using AMOS v28.0 to test the hypothesized relationships between perceived benefits, perceived risks, and adoption intentions. The analysis controlled for age, household income, political affiliation, religious views, and prior births.Perceived benefits were positively related to intention to adopt telemedicine for reproductive care (β: 0.600, p < 0.001), and willingness to disclose accurate personal health information (β: 0.453, p < 0.001). Unexpectedly, perceived privacy risks were positively related to adoption intentions (β: 0.128, p < 0.001), but negatively related to willingness to disclose (β: −0.282, p < 0.001). Intentions to adopt were positively associated with willingness to disclose (β: 0.089, p < 0.05). Lastly, older women and women located in states with abortion restrictions expressed lower intentions to adopt. The model explained 40.2% of variance in intention to adopt and 38.3% of variance in willingness to disclose.The study demonstrates the importance of perceived benefits and privacy risks in driving telemedicine adoption and disclosure intentions among women in the reproductive health context. These findings suggest the need for targeted strategies to address privacy concerns and support telemedicine adoption, particularly in restrictive regulatory environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological advancements have made artificial intelligence and robotic systems more functional, intelligent as well vulnerable. This development caused fresh discussions about service robots in tourism and hospitality service settings where privacy is crucial. One of these discussions is the privacy of personal information and the attitude toward service robots. With a focus on current discussions, this study aims to explore the relationship between the perceived benefits and risks of disclosing personal information and the intention to use service robots. This study also hypothesized that willingness to disclose information privacy influence the intention to use service robot. In this study, an online survey was used as a method of quantitative research. A total of 541 responses were received during the data collection process. Model and hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results of this research showed that perceived personalization and personal innovativeness were associated with the perceived benefits of information disclosure. Meanwhile, it was found that the unauthorized secondary use of personal data and perceived policy effectiveness were negatively related to the perceived risks of information disclosure. Overall, the results indicated that perceptions of disclosing personal information under privacy calculus were related to the intention to use a service robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contests are commonly used as a mechanism for eliciting effort and participation in multi-agent settings. Naturally, and much like with various other mechanisms, the information provided to the agents prior to and throughout the contest fundamentally influences its outcomes. In this paper we study the problem of information providing whenever the contest organizer does not initially hold the information and obtaining it is potentially costly. As the underlying contest mechanism for our model we use the binary contest, where contestants' strategy is captured by their decision whether or not to participate in the contest in the first place. Here, it is often the case that the contest organizer can proactively obtain and provide contestants information related to their expected performance in the contest. We provide a comprehensive equilibrium analysis of the model, showing that even when such information is costless, it is not necessarily the case that the contest organizer will prefer to obtain and provide it to all agents, let alone when the information is costly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intangible digital technologies have advanced significantly over the past few decades. We examine the effects of government digital economy procurement programs on rural household entrepreneurship using data from the Chinese Household Finance Survey, China Grassroots Governance Survey, and Chinese government procurement data from 2015 to 2019. We find that the likelihood of rural household entrepreneurship is greatly increased by the government acquisition of products in the digital economy. Our mechanism analysis shows that government digital procurement could have an impact on rural household entrepreneurship by easing credit restrictions, encouraging the growth of distinctive industries, and improving government information disclosures. Furthermore, the effects of government procurement in the digital economy are particularly noticeable in counties characterized by e-commerce and industry integration. The paper offers insightful policy recommendations for the use of digital initiatives to support rural economic development in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we first provide information about "Disclosure of Information" and "Notification Obligations of Publicly Traded Companies", one of which is "Material Event Disclosures". Next, Material Event Disclosures of companies included in the BIST 50 Index are examined. Research is conducted on 4,149 notifications covering the period 01.01.2020 - 31.12.2020. We find that a total of 90 companies made 4,149 notifications. These notifications are categorized under 43 standard notification topics and one non-standard topic called "Material Event Disclosures (General)." In summary, 44 out of the possible 68 "Material Event Disclosures" topics are used during the sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores on the credit risk of Chinese A-share listed companies. Based on the empirical study, we analyse both the individual and combined effects of E, S, and G scores. Our findings indicate that improvements in ESG scores significantly reduce credit risk, particularly among green companies and those with high transparency. This conclusion remains robust after accounting for potential endogeneity bias through the application of the instrumental variable method. Furthermore, our study delves into how ESG scores impact credit risk. An increase in ESG scores reduces a company's debt default risk by decreasing the negative ESG-related news sentiment, enhancing stock liquidity, lowering financing costs, and improving the quality of internal controls. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of ESG factors in risk management and offer practical guidance for companies seeking to enhance their ESG performance in relation to credit risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The online expert service (OES) market is thriving by providing convenient professional services such as telemedicine consultation, legal advice, and financial planning. However, the practical phenomena, namely information asymmetry and the existence of naive consumers in the OES industry, motivate us to investigate how consumers' two-dimensional heterogeneity and the expert's agency pricing strategy with effort costs affect the OES platform's information disclosure decision and corresponding market outcomes. By building a game-theoretic model, we consider the monopolistic OES platform in which the expert provides service to a mass of consumers, who can be either sophisticated or naive. The platform, as the designer of the disclosure framework, is thus an additional player in the seller-consumer game. Our results show that, when the marginal cost is intermediate, the platform strategically manipulates consumers' valuation beliefs with partial disclosure to increase profitability without significant loss of market coverage. Furthermore, when naive consumers exist, the platform counter-intuitively discloses more information compared to that of all sophisticated consumers. Moreover, interestingly, when the marginal cost is low-to-intermediate, more naive consumers bring about more disclosure and thus obtain more demand for high-end sophisticated consumers, making both the expert and platform better off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stochastic clearing system is studied from a game-theoretic perspective in the paper where the server is subject to a Poisson-generated catastrophe and a follow-up repair process. Whenever a fatal shock (catastrophe) occurs, all customers are cleared from the system and the server fails. A repair is rendered immediately to fix the server with an exponential repair time. During the repair process, no customers are allowed to enter the system. Customers are strategic and they have the right to decide whether to join the system or balk based on a linear reward-cost structure with two types of rewards: A service reward for those customers that receive service and a compensation for those customers that are forced to abandon the system due to a catastrophe. During the service process, the server takes a working vacation after serving all the customers in the system. Our study is the first attempt to provide models to jointly characterize and analyse the queueing system with working vacation and catastrophes, with an emphasis on game-theoretic modeling of such a service system. The customer's equilibrium strategy and social benefit of the system under four different information scenarios are obtained. In particular, we find that customers obey the follow-the-crowd (FTC) property in almost observable condition, which provides managerial insight on the operations management perspective. Numerical experiments are presented to show the effects of system parameters and information levels on the equilibrium joining behavior of customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: We investigate how the characteristics of consumers and a service firm influence the firm's optimal pricing and promised delivery-time decisions as well as the optimal investment in the quality of delivery reliability information available to consumers. Methodology/results: We use utility, queuing, and choice modeling theories to model consumers' behavior and to find solutions to the firm's profit maximization problem. Managerial implications: The optimal strategy is to disclose either error-free delivery reliability information or no information at all. We also delineate conditions for each of the two strategies to dominate. Funding: This research was supported by the General Research Fund (GRF) of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council under Research Project LU13500822. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.0223. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When two people coincidentally have something in common (such as a name or birthday), they tend to like each other more and are thus more likely to offer help and comply with requests. This dynamic can have important legal and ethical consequences whenever these incidental similarities give rise to unfair favoritism. Using a large-scale, longitudinal natural experiment, covering nearly 200,000 annual earnings forecasts over more than 25 y, we show that when a CEO and a securities analyst share a first name, the analysts financial forecast is more accurate. We offer evidence that name matching improves forecast accuracy due to CEOs privately sharing pertinent information with name-matched analysts. Additionally, we show that this effect is especially pronounced among CEO-analyst pairs who share an uncommon first name. Our research thus demonstrates how incidental similarities can give way to special treatment. Whereas most investigations of the effects of similarity consider only one-shot interactions, we use a longitudinal dataset to show that the effect of name matching diminishes over time with more interactions between CEOs and analysts. We also point to the findings of an experiment suggesting that favoritism born of sharing a name may evade straightforward regulation in part due to peoples perception that name similarity would exert little influence on them. Taken together, our work offers insight into when private disclosures are likely to be made. Our results suggest that the effectiveness of regulatory policies can be significantly impacted by psychological factors shaping the context in which they are implemented.

This paper considers a retail platform selling a product to consumers and voluntarily discloses product quality information by using blockchain technology (BCT). Consumers decide whether to deliberate before making purchase decisions. We develop an analytical model to explore the effects of information disclosure strategies on the retail platform's pricing and consumers' deliberation decisions. Some interesting results are obtained. First, regardless of the information disclosure strategy, consumers' deliberation and purchasing decisions depend on the deliberation cost and product price. Consumers will only deliberate if the price is at the medium level and the deliberation cost is not too high. Second, when the disclosure cost is high, the retail platform either stimulates or prevents consumer deliberation; however, when the disclosure cost is at a medium interval, the retail platform's pricing decision depends on its information disclosure strategy. Specifically, when disclosing quality information, the retail platform will implement the stimulated deliberation (SD) or prevented deliberation (PD) strategy and will never adopt the sold at a low price (SL) strategy; however, when quality information is withheld, the retail platform will only adopt the PD strategy. Third, we identify the conditions under which the retail platform should disclose quality information when facing different disclosure costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of national approaches to the study of corporate responsibility in the field of sustainable development is based not only on the expansion of methodological tools for assessment, but also on the need to provide it with a global perspective. Of particular interest is the study of corporate responsibility in developing countries that lag behind in terms of adoption but have distinct national characteristics. India, as the first country to oblige its companies to allocate funds for corporate social responsibility (CSR), demonstrates its intentions to form a national concept of sustainabledevelopment. The BRICS partnership between Russia and India provides opportunities for deeper co-operation in the field of sustainable development in general and corporate responsibility in particular. The paper chooses reports related to sustainable development and corporate social responsibility expenditures, as well as public initiatives of Indian companies as objects of research. An indicator characterising the national corporate approach to sustainable development is proposed.

The return cost burdens both consumers and merchants, leading merchants to emphasize information disclosure during pre-sales of new products. This study analyzes the effects of information disclosure methods on consumer valuation and merchants' pre-sale strategies across four scenarios: no advance selling, no information disclosure, traditional information disclosure, and blockchain-enabled information disclosure. We examine optimal pricing and inventory strategies under each scenario, assessing the value of information disclosure and the merchant's optimal advance selling strategy. We find that traditional information disclosure could lead to various pre-sale pricing outcomes based on consumer valuation distribution bounds, trust levels, and merchant return losses. Blockchain-based disclosure influences merchants to implement premium pricing, which may render blockchain unnecessary. Offering pre-orders is beneficial with any information disclosure method. If consumers have varied product understandings, merchants benefit more from using an information disclosure strategy rather than just offering returns; otherwise, the reverse is true. The paper provides theoretical insights into optimal pre-sale information disclosure practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Analyze the relationship between corporate governance and the level of information disclosure of companies listed in IBrX-100. Methodology: Descriptive, exploratory and quantitative study, in which the data collection procedure from 2016 to 2020, which is the period studied, is characterized as documentary, making use of the content analysis technique and Economática® software, [B] ? and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The final sample is made up of 61 companies. For data analysis, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and panel data regression were used, both performed using the RStudio software. Results: Evidence shows that the Information Disclosure Index (IDI) suffered few fluctuations over the analyzed period, reaching a total average value of 0.7754, with the highest and lowest averages of 0.7787 and 0.7691, respectively. As for the relationship of the IDI with the corporate governance variables, the findings indicated that there is no significant positive relationship between the size of the board, board independence, dual roles of the CEO and institutional investors with the IDI, but there is a significant positive relationship between the board's gender diversity with IDI. These results are consistent with studies already carried out internationally. Contributions of the Study: The present research contributes to the current literature by providing empirical findings on the relationship of corporate governance structure in the practice of disclosure of information by publicly traded companies in Brazil, being useful in the decision-making of stakeholders and in the definition of members to compose the company's board of directors. In addition, this study adds the empirical finding about the positive relationship found between female directors and information disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet plays a pivotal role as channel for information disclosure. The current study aims to examine the status of disclosure practices of corporate governance items of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 500 companies on their corporate website. The study uses a twenty-five items checklist to calculate score for the corporate governance items on the company website. The results reveal that score with respect to disclosure of corporate governance items exhibited a wide range, spanning from 44 percent to 96 percent. The average corporate governance disclosure score stands at 69.64 percent which suggests that Indian companies are effectively using their corporate websites to disclose corporate governance information. However, this also highlights a significant room for enhancement in the portrayal of corporate governance attributes on the corporate website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the frequent occurrence of online public opinion events, the problem of product stigma is becoming increasingly serious. Enterprises must use effective quality information disclosure strategies to reduce losses affecting market sales and profit. Therefore, this paper aims to address the supply chain structure composed of one product manufacturer and one component manufacturer under the influence of stigma. It constructs a decision optimization model under three scenarios: no information disclosure, the product manufacturer disclosures information, and the component manufacturer disclosures information, and uses Stackelberg game theory to solve and analyze the model. Furthermore, we use numerical examples to verify the model results, and provide management suggestions for enterprises. The research results show that enterprises suffering from product stigma should actively implement information disclosure strategies to reduce their profit losses, and the lower the stigma level, the better the effect of information disclosure will be; when the stigma level becomes more serious, enterprises should take timely steps to reduce the sales price of products, the sales price of components, and the efforts to disclose information; for industries that value confidentiality of product information, although the implementation of information disclosure by the component manufacturer can require less effort for information disclosure, the two enterprises will suffer higher economic losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to develop environmentally respectful business activities has led academics to propose the circular economy (CE) as a more sustainable production and consumption model than the linear model, where interest groups demand greater disclosure of information that makes it possible to evaluate the business transition towards the CE. Also, the planetary boundaries framework provides thresholds for different natural processes that are affected by business activities, so in this research, we link the CE to planetary boundaries by designing a score, and we analyse the presence of female directors and the role women play in the presentation of CE information that attends to planetary boundaries. We also examine the effect that national cultures characterized by high power distance and masculinity can have on their performance. We use a sample of 832 companies around the world from 2011 to 2020. The results show that women directors promote the presentation of CE information at a global level and disaggregated by CE issues, framed within planetary boundaries—a relation that is reinforced in societies with high power distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of AI, as algorithms rapidly penetrate e-commerce platforms, it is timely to investigate the role of algorithm awareness (AA) in privacy decisions because it can shape consumers' information-disclosure behaviors. Focusing on the role of AA in the privacy decision-making process, this study investigated consumers' personal information disclosures when using an e-commerce platform with personalized algorithms. By integrating the dual calculus model and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we constructed a privacy decision-making model for consumers. Sample data from 581 online-shopping consumers were collected by a questionnaire survey, and SmartPLS 4.0 software was used to conduct a structural equation path analysis and a mediating effects test on the sample data. The findings suggest that AA is a potential antecedent to the privacy decision-making process through which consumers seek to evaluate privacy risks and make self-disclosure decisions. The privacy decision process goes through two interrelated trade-offs—that threat appraisals and coping appraisals weigh each other to determine the (net) perceived risk and, then, the (net) perceived risk and the perceived benefit weigh each other to decide privacy attitudes. By applying the TPB to the model, the findings further show that privacy attitudes and subjective norms jointly affect information-disclosure intention whereas perceived behavioral control has no significant impact on information-disclosure intention. The results of this study give actionable insights into how to utilize the privacy decision-making process to promote algorithm adoption and decisions regarding information disclosure, serving as a point of reference for the development of a human-centered algorithm based on AA in reference to FEAT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of environmental information disclosure on firm pollution behavior by leveraging an exogenous shock which allow Chinese environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to disclose pollution information. Using a difference-in-differences approach comparing firms in disclosed cities versus undisclosed cities, we find ENGO information disclosure significantly reduces manufacturing firm COD emissions. We explore several potential mechanisms and find that the reduction effect was primarily driven by "higher-level government supervision" rather than "public supervision." Heterogeneous analysis reveals significant effects only for firms facing high reduction pressure, low governance costs, weak local protection, and in heavy-polluting industries. Our findings provide insights into supplementing inadequate regulations with informal institutions to achieve environmental aims within a decentralized economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information regarding agricultural products is crucial to consumers. Blockchain technology theoretically offers a solution to the trust issues surrounding agricultural products by ensuring the credibility of information sources, facilitating trust transmission, and improving information management. Consequently, information plays a pivotal role in consumers' purchasing decisions. This paper investigates strategies for adopting blockchain technology within an agricultural supply chain comprising two competing platforms. Additionally, it analyzes the level of consumer trust in disclosed information and the influence of blockchain adoption costs on strategy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental information disclosure (EID) is integral to government environmental policies and corporate social responsibilities. The current research presents a theoretical model that analyses the connection between EID, green finance, and green technological innovation (GTI). The required data was collected through a structured questionnaire, and final data analysis was performed using 230 valid responses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) combined with artificial neural networks (ANN) is used in the present framework to analyze constructs' linear and non-linear relationships. The empirical analysis found that government EID significantly improved the value of green securities (GS) and green credit (GC), aided considerably by enterprises' openness about environmental practices. Green securities and GC are also used, which has a good impact on the development of GTI. Green financing is critical when linking environmental disclosure with green technologies in businesses. The results reveal the mediating role of GC and GS in the relationship between the two aspects of EIDs (EEID and GEID) and GTI, providing a new perspective on how EID influences GTI through financial mechanisms. The findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate interplay between EID, green finance, and GTI, providing valuable insights for policymakers, businesses, and investors working toward sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of investor-paid rating agency on stock price crash risk. The findings reveal a substantial 127.6% reduction in the stock price crash risk for stocks tracked by investor-paid rating agency compared to those without such tracking. As for the mechanism, the following of investor-paid rating agency reduces earnings management, induces more negative information disclosure, and improves information disclosure quality. The impact of investor-paid rating agency is more pronounced in firms with poorer corporate governance. Further analysis indicates that the impact of investor-paid rating agency increases with the frequency of rating tracking and the rating difference between issuer-paid rating agency and investor-paid rating agency, while stock market reaction induced by investor-paid rating agency has little effect on the baseline result. Moreover, the tracking of investor-paid rating agency facilitates the information flow between the bond market and stock market, and improves analyst forecast performance. In summary, we suggest that investor-paid rating agency tracking acts as a valid passive monitoring mechanism to alleviate principal-agent problems and provide information on firms' downside risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing an institutional environment centered around information disclosure (ID) is the direction of development for capital market reforms. This paper innovatively explores the stock market response (MR) to companies' enhanced ID due to institutional changes. Using data from Chinese companies listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board (STIB) from 2019 to 2023, the study employs Information Asymmetry Theory and Stakeholder Theory to analyze the relationship between ID levels and MR. The empirical analysis reveals a ''U-shaped'' relationship between ID level and MR. Furthermore, by introducing variables related to the information environment (IE) and technological innovation (TI), the study finds that their signaling effects vary among different audiences. High transparency in the IE and strong TI capabilities significantly mitigate the negative MR effects caused by revealing deficiencies during the enhancement of ID. This paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for capital market reform, improved financial regulation, enhanced credit quality of listed companies, and investor protection.

In this study, we examine the peer effect on climate risk information disclosure by analyzing A-share listed companies in China. We find that industry peers influence target firms’ climate risk information disclosure through active (passive) imitation resulting from cost–benefit considerations (institutional pressures). Leader companies are more likely to be emulated by within-industry follower companies and target firms prefer to learn from similar within-industry firms. Executive overconfidence and performance pressure negatively affect target firms’ willingness to emulate their peers. Finally, the peer effect of climate risk information disclosure demonstrates a regional aspect. Our findings have implications for reasonable climate risk information disclosure at the micro level and effective regulation to move toward achieving carbon peak/neutrality at the macro level.

In the context of AI, as algorithms rapidly penetrate e-commerce platforms, it is timely to investigate the role of algorithm awareness (AA) in privacy decisions because it can shape consumers’ information-disclosure behaviors. Focusing on the role of AA in the privacy decision-making process, this study investigated consumers’ personal information disclosures when using an e-commerce platform with personalized algorithms. By integrating the dual calculus model and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we constructed a privacy decision-making model for consumers. Sample data from 581 online-shopping consumers were collected by a questionnaire survey, and SmartPLS 4.0 software was used to conduct a structural equation path analysis and a mediating effects test on the sample data. The findings suggest that AA is a potential antecedent to the privacy decision-making process through which consumers seek to evaluate privacy risks and make self-disclosure decisions. The privacy decision process goes through two interrelated trade-offs—that threat appraisals and coping appraisals weigh each other to determine the (net) perceived risk and, then, the (net) perceived risk and the perceived benefit weigh each other to decide privacy attitudes. By applying the TPB to the model, the findings further show that privacy attitudes and subjective norms jointly affect information-disclosure intention whereas perceived behavioral control has no significant impact on information-disclosure intention. The results of this study give actionable insights into how to utilize the privacy decision-making process to promote algorithm adoption and decisions regarding information disclosure, serving as a point of reference for the development of a human-centered algorithm based on AA in reference to FEAT.

Ad exchanges, where real-time auctions for display ad impressions take place, have historically emphasized user targeting, and advertisers sometimes did not know on which sites their ads would appear; in other words, they had no ad context. More recently, some ad exchanges have been encouraging publishers to provide context information to ad buyers that would allow them to adjust their bids for ads at specific sites. This article explores the empirical effect of a change in context information provided by a private European ad exchange. Analyzing this as a quasi-experiment using difference in differences, the authors find that average revenue per impression rose when the exchange provided subdomain information to ad buyers. Thus, ad context information is important to ad buyers, and they will act on it. Revenue per impression rises for nearly all sites, which is what auction theory predicts will happen when rational buyers with heterogeneous preferences are given more information. Exceptions are sites with thin markets prior to the policy change; consistent with theory, these sites do not show a rise in prices. This study adds evidence that ad exchanges with reputable publishers, particularly smaller volume, high-quality sites, should provide ad buyers with context information, which can be done at almost no cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]