How does the information environment affect information asymmetry around earnings announcements?

Abstract

This paper shows that the information environment is an important determinant of private information acquisition and changes in information asymmetry around earnings announcements. I create a sample of earnings announcements from 39 countries and investigate whether firm and country-level variation in the information environment affects private information acquisition. To do this, I examine the level of information asymmetry before and during earnings announcements. A stronger firm-level information environment is (1) negatively related to changes in pre-event information asymmetry and (2) positively related to changes in event period information asymmetry. Similarly, a stronger country-level information environment is associated with the firm-level information environment having a stronger effect on information asymmetry before the announcement and a weaker effect during the announcement.