IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cfrwps/1602.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The freedom of information act and the race towards information acquisition

Author

Listed:
  • Gargano, Antonio
  • Rossi, Alberto G.
  • Wermers, Russ

Abstract

We document a little-known source of information exploited by sophisticated institutional investors: the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a law that allows for the disclosure of previously unreleased information by the U.S. Government. Through FOIA requests, we identify several sophisticated institutional investors, chiefly hedge funds, that request information from the FDA. We explore the type of information commonly requested by funds and the types of firms that are targets of FDA-FOIA requests, and we show that FOIA requests allow these investors to generate abnormal returns. Thus, we illustrate a detailed mechanism through which costly information becomes incorporated into market prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Gargano, Antonio & Rossi, Alberto G. & Wermers, Russ, 2015. "The freedom of information act and the race towards information acquisition," CFR Working Papers 16-02, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:1602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/144613/1/863471463.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul A. Gompers & Andrew Metrick, 2001. "Institutional Investors and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 229-259.
    2. Warren Bailey & Haitao Li & Connie X. Mao & Rui Zhong, 2003. "Regulation Fair Disclosure and Earnings Information: Market, Analyst, and Corporate Responses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2487-2514, December.
    3. Marcin Kacperczyk & Amit Seru, 2007. "Fund Manager Use of Public Information: New Evidence on Managerial Skills," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 485-528, April.
    4. Nerissa C. Brown & Kelsey D. Wei & Russ Wermers, 2014. "Analyst Recommendations, Mutual Fund Herding, and Overreaction in Stock Prices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 1-20, January.
    5. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    6. Dowdell, Thomas D. & Govindaraj, Suresh & Jain, Prem C., 1992. "The Tylenol Incident, Ensuing Regulation, and Stock Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 283-301, June.
    7. Andriy Bodnaruk & Massimo Massa & Andrei Simonov, 2009. "Investment Banks as Insiders and the Market for Corporate Control," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4989-5026, December.
    8. Karpoff, Jonathan M., 1987. "The Relation between Price Changes and Trading Volume: A Survey," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 109-126, March.
    9. Massa, Massimo & Rehman, Zahid, 2008. "Information flows within financial conglomerates: Evidence from the banks-mutual funds relation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 288-306, August.
    10. Hellwig, Martin F., 1980. "On the aggregation of information in competitive markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 477-498, June.
    11. Leuz, C & Verrecchia, RE, 2000. "The economic consequences of increased disclosure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38, pages 91-124.
    12. Frank, Murray Z. & Goyal, Vidhan K., 2003. "Testing the pecking order theory of capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 217-248, February.
    13. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    14. James A. Bennett, 2003. "Greener Pastures and the Impact of Dynamic Institutional Preferences," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1203-1238.
    15. John M. Griffin & Tao Shu & Selim Topaloglu, 2012. "Examining the Dark Side of Financial Markets: Do Institutions Trade on Information from Investment Bank Connections?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(7), pages 2155-2188.
    16. Admati, Anat R & Pfleiderer, Paul, 2000. "Forcing Firms to Talk: Financial Disclosure Regulation and Externalities," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 479-519.
    17. Chen, Yong & Liang, Bing, 2007. "Do Market Timing Hedge Funds Time the Market?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(4), pages 827-856, December.
    18. Vikas Agarwal & Wei Jiang & Yuehua Tang & Baozhong Yang, 2013. "Uncovering Hedge Fund Skill from the Portfolio Holdings They Hide," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(2), pages 739-783, April.
    19. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharftstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1992. "Herd on the Street: Informational Inefficiencies in a Market with Short-Term Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1461-1484, September.
    20. Verrecchia, Robert E, 1982. "Information Acquisition in a Noisy Rational Expectations Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1415-1430, November.
    21. Falkenstein, Eric G, 1996. "Preferences for Stock Characteristics as Revealed by Mutual Fund Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 111-135, March.
    22. Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2005. "Information Leakage and Market Efficiency," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 417-457.
    23. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1993. "Differences of Opinion Make a Horse Race," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 473-506.
    24. Ivashina, Victoria & Sun, Zheng, 2011. "Institutional stock trading on loan market information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 284-303, May.
    25. Jarrell, Gregg & Peltzman, Sam, 1985. "The Impact of Product Recalls on the Wealth of Sellers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 512-536, June.
    26. S. P. Kothari & Susan Shu & Peter D. Wysocki, 2009. "Do Managers Withhold Bad News?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 241-276, March.
    27. Hirshleifer, David & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Titman, Sheridan, 1994. "Security Analysis and Trading Patterns When Some Investors Receive Information before Others," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1665-1698, December.
    28. Jiang, George J. & Yao, Tong & Yu, Tong, 2007. "Do mutual funds time the market? Evidence from portfolio holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 724-758, December.
    29. deHaan, Ed & Shevlin, Terry & Thornock, Jacob, 2015. "Market (in)attention and the strategic scheduling and timing of earnings announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 36-55.
    30. Massoud, Nadia & Nandy, Debarshi & Saunders, Anthony & Song, Keke, 2011. "Do hedge funds trade on private information? Evidence from syndicated lending and short-selling," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 477-499, March.
    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. Francesco D'Acunto & Alberto G. Rossi & Michael Weber & Michael Weber, 2019. "Crowdsourcing financial information to change spending behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 7533, CESifo.
    2. Pei, Duo & Vasarhelyi, Miklos A., 2020. "Big data and algorithmic trading against periodic and tangible asset reporting: The need for U-XBRL," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    3. Boone, Audra L. & Floros, Ioannis V. & Johnson, Shane A., 2016. "Redacting proprietary information at the initial public offering," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 102-123.
    4. Alan Crane & Kevin Crotty & Tarik Umar, 2023. "Hedge Funds and Public Information Acquisition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3241-3262, June.
    5. Kumar, Nitish & Mullally, Kevin & Ray, Sugata & Tang, Yuehua, 2020. "Prime (information) brokerage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 371-391.
    6. Sumit Agarwal & Wenlan Qian & Xin Zou, 2021. "Disaggregated Sales and Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 7167-7183, November.
    7. Xiong, Yan, 2022. "Comments on “Information acquisition and expected returns: Evidence from EDGAR search traffic,” by Weikai Li and Chengzhu Sun," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    8. Eliezer Fich & Viktoriya Lantushenko & Clemens Sialm, 2019. "Institutional Trading Around M&A Announcements," NBER Working Papers 25814, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. David Kreitmeir & Nathan Lane & Paul A. Raschky, 2020. "The Value of Names - Civil Society, Information, and Governing Multinationals on the Global Periphery," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2020-10, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.
    10. Liao Xu & Xiangkang Yin & Jing Zhao, 2022. "Are the flows of exchange‐traded funds informative?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 1165-1200, December.
    11. Braiden Coleman & Kenneth Merkley & Brian Miller & Joseph Pacelli, 2021. "Does the Freedom of Information Act Foil the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Intent to Keep Investigations Confidential?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3419-3428, June.

    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. Jiao, Yawen & Ye, Pengfei, 2014. "Mutual fund herding in response to hedge fund herding and the impacts on stock prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 131-148.
    2. Guo, Xu & Gu, Chen & Zebedee, Allan A. & Chiu, Li-ting, 2024. "The effect of institutional herding on stock prices: The differentiating role of credit ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    3. Nerissa C. Brown & Kelsey D. Wei & Russ Wermers, 2014. "Analyst Recommendations, Mutual Fund Herding, and Overreaction in Stock Prices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 1-20, January.
    4. Cai, Fang & Han, Song & Li, Dan & Li, Yi, 2019. "Institutional herding and its price impact: Evidence from the corporate bond market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 139-167.
    5. Li, Wei & Wang, Steven Shuye, 2010. "Daily institutional trades and stock price volatility in a retail investor dominated emerging market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 448-474, November.
    6. Verrecchia, Robert E., 2001. "Essays on disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 97-180, December.
    7. Eliezer Fich & Viktoriya Lantushenko & Clemens Sialm, 2019. "Institutional Trading Around M&A Announcements," NBER Working Papers 25814, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Blankespoor, Elizabeth & deHaan, Ed & Marinovic, Iván, 2020. "Disclosure processing costs, investors’ information choice, and equity market outcomes: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).
    9. I. Koetsier & J.A. Bikker, 2018. "Herding behavior of Dutch pension funds in asset class investments," Working Papers 18-04, Utrecht School of Economics.
    10. Chen, An-Sing & Hong, Bi-Shia, 2006. "Institutional ownership changes and returns around analysts' earnings forecast release events: Evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 2471-2488, September.
    11. Choi, Nicole & Skiba, Hilla, 2015. "Institutional herding in international markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 246-259.
    12. Kelsey D. Wei & Russ Wermers & Tong Yao, 2015. "Uncommon Value: The Characteristics and Investment Performance of Contrarian Funds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2394-2414, October.
    13. Wang, Hailong & Hu, Duni, 2021. "Heterogeneous beliefs with herding behaviors and asset pricing in two goods world," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    14. Shiyang Huang & Bart Zhou Yueshen, 2021. "Speed Acquisition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3492-3518, June.
    15. Amil Dasgupta & Andrea Prat & Michela Verardo, 2005. "The Price of Conformism," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000357, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Chen, Yong & Kelly, Bryan & Wu, Wei, 2020. "Sophisticated investors and market efficiency: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 316-341.
    17. Jeon, Jin Q & Moffett, Clay M., 2010. "Herding by foreign investors and emerging market equity returns: Evidence from Korea," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 698-710, October.
    18. Guney, Yilmaz & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Komba, Gabriel, 2017. "Herding in frontier markets: Evidence from African stock exchanges," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 152-175.
    19. Celiker, Umut & Chowdhury, Jaideep & Sonaer, Gokhan, 2015. "Do mutual funds herd in industries?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-16.
    20. Anzhela Knyazeva & Diana Knyazeva & Leonard Kostovetsky, 2018. "Investor heterogeneity and trading," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(4), pages 680-718, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    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:zbw:cfrwps:1602. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfkoede.html .

    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.