Institutional attention and investment efficiency

Abstract

This study investigates how institutional investors' attention on the earnings announcement day affects corporate investment decisions. I find that the investment of firms receiving abnormal institutional attention is approximately 1.8 times more sensitive to their stock price than that of others. This effect is more pronounced when institutional investors have greater incentives to produce information and when corporate managers have greater incentives and capability to employ the incremental information contained in the stock price. These findings suggest that attention encourages institutional investors to incorporate private information into stock prices, which provides a useful guide for managers' investment decisions.