The Timing of Annual Report Disclosure:Characteristics and Economic Consequences——Evidence from Two Stock Exchanges in China

This paper analyzes the annual reports(from 1997 to 2011)of firms listed on two stock exchanges in China and reveals four significant characteristics of disclosure timing.These characteristics have significant economic implications for stock market movement,including positive contributions to stock price,trading volume and abnormal return.It thereby demonstrates that the CSRC’s"balanced disclosure"policy has not been working as expected and needs further review and improvement.

Waiting and following: Within-industry herding behavior in annual report disclosure

Using the unique scheduled disclosure system for annual reports in China’s stock market,we examine within-industry herding behavior in annual report timing.The results reveal the waiting and following behavior strategies used in the annual reporting process within industry.Firms that originally schedule an early(late)disclosure date within their industry are more likely to reschedule to a later(earlier)date.Informational pressure is the dominant mechanism underlying herding in annual reporting,and capital market reputation incentives mainly induce the herding of bad news.Further analysis shows that delaying disclosure via the waiting strategy reduces the future occurrence of restatements,whereas bringing forward disclosure does not change the propensity of future restatements.Overall,we enrich the limited empirical studies on sequential mandatory disclosure decisions within industry.