Based on a quasi-natural experiment that mandates a subset of listed firms to issue standalone corporate social responsibility(CSR)reports,we examine whether mandatory CSR disclosure improves analysts’information env...Based on a quasi-natural experiment that mandates a subset of listed firms to issue standalone corporate social responsibility(CSR)reports,we examine whether mandatory CSR disclosure improves analysts’information environment.We focus on two properties of analysts’earnings forecasts:forecast error and forecast dispersion.We find that the mandatory issuance of standalone CSR reports is related to less forecast error and less dispersed forecasts,and the effect varies with the firm-level information environment and provincelevel marketization.Additional tests show that the improvement in forecast properties is mainly driven by CSR reports that i)are of high quality and ii)contain more long-term-oriented information than other CSR reports.Our findings provide evidence that mandatory CSR disclosure plays an important informational role for financial analysts.展开更多
基金the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.71772123)
文摘Based on a quasi-natural experiment that mandates a subset of listed firms to issue standalone corporate social responsibility(CSR)reports,we examine whether mandatory CSR disclosure improves analysts’information environment.We focus on two properties of analysts’earnings forecasts:forecast error and forecast dispersion.We find that the mandatory issuance of standalone CSR reports is related to less forecast error and less dispersed forecasts,and the effect varies with the firm-level information environment and provincelevel marketization.Additional tests show that the improvement in forecast properties is mainly driven by CSR reports that i)are of high quality and ii)contain more long-term-oriented information than other CSR reports.Our findings provide evidence that mandatory CSR disclosure plays an important informational role for financial analysts.
