Weibo Disclosure And Inquiry Regulation: Say More Or Say Less?

In recent years,with continuous promotion of the reform of the registration system,to further ensure the benign development of the capital market,information disclosure is the top priority.From the regulatory level,the non-punitive supervision,which is mostly expressed in the form of regulatory inquiry,has gradually become a normal supervision mode of regulators,is important for standardizing the information disclosure of listed companies,playing an important role in improving the fairness and efficiency of the capital market.At the same time,the continuous development of information technology has given birth to a large number of social media.The information disclosure channels of listed companies are no longer limited to regular reports and traditional media,but further extended to all kinds of We Media platforms.Previous literature also shows that the information released by listed companies on all kinds of We Media platforms is related to their information transparency.From the perspective of information disclosure,there may be a connection between the We Media information disclosure of listed companies and their receipt of regulatory inquiries,but there is little literature to directly analyze their correlation.Therefore,this thesis starts with Weibo,a representative social media platform,to explore the relationship between the Weibo information disclosure of listed companies and their receipt of inquiry letters.This thesis divides the discussion of the relationship into three levels: The first level is the impact of the Weibo disclosure on inquiry letter receiving probability and frequency for all listed companies;the second level is the impact of the Weibo disclosure on the letter receiving market reaction for companies which had received inquiry letters;the third level is based on the second level to explore the difference of the impact between companies with different information transparency.This thesis takes the Weibo disclosure and inquiry letters receiving of listed companies from 2015 to 2019 as the research object,using logit model to analyze the impact of Weibo disclosure of listed companies on their inquiry letter receiving probability,using event study model and fixed effect model to analyze the impact of Weibo disclosure of listed companies on their inquiry letter receiving frequency and their inquiry letter receiving market reaction.This thesis finds that:(1)companies that open Weibo and release more weibos have a lower probability and frequency of receiving inquiry letters;(2)for companies that had received inquiry letters,the more weibos they had released would lead to a more negative market response;(3)the market response is more obvious in companies with high information opacity.The conclusion of this thesis shows that Weibo information is generally conducive to reducing outsiders' doubts about enterprise information,but the more weibos released that are not conducive to reducing enterprise information doubts will further worsen the market reaction brought by the receipt of letters,that is,effective information should "say more",and useless information should "say less".Combined with previous studies,this thesis comprehensively considers the following conditions:(1)this thesis control the fixed effect of consumer industry for testing,as the consumer industry is closer to public's daily life and the Weibo information quality of relevant enterprises may be significantly higher than other companies;(2)this thesis only keep the annual inquiry letter in sample for testing,as the annual inquiry letter issued by the exchange is more regular and targeted;(3)because the level of corporate governance may be an important factor affecting the Weibo disclosure of listed companies,this thesis considers more factors related to corporate governance;(4)considering that companies with high publicity ability might release more Weibo information and have more potential followers,the company's publicity ability is included in the scope of discussion;(5)generally,the company would give a reply after receiving the inquiry letter,so whether the company replies to the letter is included in the scope of discussion;(6)controlling the fixed effect of the whole industry;(7)PSM matching is used to alleviate the endogenous problem of whether listed companies open Weibo.After the above tests,the empirical results remain robust.According to the conclusion of this thesis,as the supply of information in the capital market,listed companies should not only pay attention to strengthening their own corporate governance level,but also actively improve their information transparency.On the premise of ensuring their sustainable development,they should take the initiative to make supplementary information disclosure through Weibo and other social media.So that the regulatory authorities and investors can have a more comprehensive understanding of the company's situation,making full use of Weibo information disclosure,to better protect the interests of investors.For the letter receiving companies,they should deal with the problems raised by the regulatory inquiry of the exchange and reply in time.The "disguised" Weibo disclosure before and after the letter receiving should be less.To some extent,the conclusion of this thesis provides a basis for the selection of We Media information disclosure of listed companies,investors to distinguish the good and bad of listed companies,and the supervision of relevant departments on We Media information disclosure of listed companies.