IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v88y2023icp1475-1499.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do credit rating agencies listen to investors’ voices on social media? Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Yu
  • Yang, Lingxuan
  • Zhou, Jing

Abstract

We examine the impact of social media on credit rating agency practices, as measured by issuer credit ratings. Information dissemination on social media increases the visibility of issuers, which is expected to exert reputational pressure on rating agencies. Consistent with the aim of rating agencies to mitigate such pressure, we find that credit ratings are lower for issuers with higher levels of information dissemination on social media. This result is more pronounced when online information contains negative sentiment, attracts more interactions, and is disseminated during the period of improvements in online environments. Our analysis confirms that reputational pressure is the mechanism through which social media affects credit ratings. Finally, we show that ratings quality increase with the level of information dissemination on social media. Overall, our results contribute to the literature on the economic benefits of social media, which acts as an informal institution to ensure the effectiveness of credit ratings in emerging economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Yu & Yang, Lingxuan & Zhou, Jing, 2023. "Do credit rating agencies listen to investors’ voices on social media? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1475-1499.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:88:y:2023:i:c:p:1475-1499
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2023.07.097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056023003064
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2023.07.097?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Samuel B. Bonsall IV & Eric R. Holzman & Brian P. Miller, 2017. "Managerial Ability and Credit Risk Assessment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1425-1449, May.
    2. Sanjiv R. Das & Mike Y. Chen, 2007. "Yahoo! for Amazon: Sentiment Extraction from Small Talk on the Web," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(9), pages 1375-1388, September.
    3. Mathis, Jérôme & McAndrews, James & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2009. "Rating the raters: Are reputation concerns powerful enough to discipline rating agencies?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 657-674, July.
    4. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    5. Jiaxing You & Bohui Zhang & Le Zhang, 2018. "Who Captures the Power of the Pen?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 43-96.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aggarwal, Nidhi & Singh, Manish K. & Thomas, Susan, 2023. "Do decreases in Distance-to-Default predict rating downgrades?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Domonkos F. Vamossy, 2020. "Investor Emotions and Earnings Announcements," Papers 2006.13934, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2020.
    2. Cai, Xiangshang & Gao, Yang & Wu, Zhiting & Yuan, Jiayi, 2024. "Chief executive officer marital status and corporate credit ratings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    3. Dang, Man & Puwanenthiren, Premkanth & Jones, Edward & Nguyen, Thieu Quang & Vo, Xuan Vinh & Nadarajah, Sivathaasan, 2022. "Strategic archetypes, credit ratings, and cost of debt," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    4. Domonkos F. Vamossy, 2024. "Social Media Emotions and Market Behavior," Papers 2404.03792, arXiv.org.
    5. Nguyen, Harvey & Pham, Anh Viet & Pham, Man Duy (Marty) & Pham, Mia Hang, 2023. "Business resilience: Lessons from government responses to the global COVID-19 crisis," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(5).
    6. David F. Larcker & Anastasia A. Zakolyukina, 2012. "Detecting Deceptive Discussions in Conference Calls," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 495-540, May.
    7. Hao, Yamin & Li, Shuo, 2021. "Does firm visibility matter to debtholders? Evidence from credit ratings," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    8. Nguyen, Hung T. & Pham, Mia Hang & Truong, Cameron, 2023. "Leadership in a pandemic: Do more able managers keep firms out of trouble?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    9. Yu-Fen Chen & Cheng-Few Lee & Fu-Lai Lin, 2023. "The influences of information demand and supply on stock price synchronicity," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1151-1176, October.
    10. Eierle, Brigitte & Klamer, Sebastian & Muck, Matthias, 2022. "Does it really pay off for investors to consider information from social media?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Bai, Jing & Tang, Xuesong & Zheng, Yuxin, 2023. "Serving the truth: Do directors with media background improve financial reporting quality?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Marandola, Ginevra, 2021. "Local Credit Rating Agencies: Is their economic role underrated?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 143-156.
    13. Chen, Xiao & Guo, Gangxing, 2024. "Air pollution and online lender behavior: Evidence from Chinese peer-to-peer lending," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    14. Chau, Michael & Lin, Chih-Yung & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2020. "Wisdom of crowds before the 2007–2009 global financial crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    15. Elizabeth Demers & Clara Vega, 2008. "Soft information in earnings announcements: news or noise?," International Finance Discussion Papers 951, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Xu, Yongxin & Xuan, Yuhao & Zheng, Gaoping, 2021. "Internet searching and stock price crash risk: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 255-275.
    17. Yi Ru & Jian Xue & Yuan Zhang & Xin Zhou, 2020. "Social connections between media and firm executives and the properties of media reporting," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 963-1001, September.
    18. Xing Liu & Lingxuan Yang & Yu Liu, 2023. "Does reputation matter? Evidence on spatial competition in China's bond market," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(S1), pages 1533-1570, April.
    19. Sabri Boubaker & Dimitrios Gounopoulos & Hatem Rjiba, 2019. "Annual report readability and stock liquidity," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 159-186, May.
    20. Trang Nguyen, 2021. "Freedom of the press and corporate misconduct," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(9-10), pages 1668-1710, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social media; Credit rating agency; Reputational pressure; Ratings quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:88:y:2023:i:c:p:1475-1499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620165 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.