Accounting & Finance Research Community Seminar – Dr Amir Amel-Zadeh

Title: Voluntary Disclosure and the Earnings Announcement Premium

Date: 28 February 2024

Time: 14:00-15:00

Location: NUBS.2.08

If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:

Voluntary Disclosure and the Earnings Announcement Premium

Speaker: Dr Amir Amel-Zadeh is Associate Professor at Saïd Business School and director of the Oxford Rethinking Performance Initiative at the University of Oxford.

Amir’s research broadly investigates the role of financial and non-financial reporting in capital markets and how companies’ sustainability characteristics affect investors’ asset allocation decisions. Prior to joining Saïd Business School, Amir held a position as Assistant Professor at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and prior to that worked at Lehman Brothers in London. He received his PhD in Finance from the University of Cambridge. Amir has taught or consulted for the financial services industry globally and was academic advisor to PanAgora Asset Management. He has held visiting positions at Harvard Business School, at New York University Stern School of Business, at Columbia Business School, and visiting professor at the University of Bologna. In addition to his faculty post at Oxford, Amir is board member of the UK Endorsement Board, responsible for adopting IFRS for use by UK companies, and is the incoming co-editor of the European Accounting Review.

Abstract:

This study investigates whether and how voluntary disclosure affects the earnings announcement premium (EAP). Using S\&P500 index additions as an exogenous source of variation in voluntary disclosures, we test the effect of guidance on information risk and investor attention as drivers of the EAP. We document a significantly positive (negative) effect of raised (lowered) guidance on the EAP reconciling attention-based and risk-based explanations. Disentangling direct and mediated effects, we find a positive direct effect of raised guidance on the EAP (attention channel) and a weaker countervailing negative indirect effect of raised guidance on idiosyncratic risk (risk channel). Lowered guidance has an unambiguously negative direct and indirect effect. Using high-frequency data we further confirm the effect of voluntary disclosure on both sources of the earnings announcement premium.